r  LIBRAE 


V 


CAL  -      N:A 
SAN  Di'GO      , 


UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 
Donated  in  memory  of 


John  W.    Snvder 


by 


His  Son  and  Daughter 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 
JAMES  A.B.SCHERER 


A   WAR  BOOK 

"COTTON  AS  A  WORLD  POWER; 

A  SrtJDY  IN  THE  ECONOMIC  INTERPRETATION 

or  HISTORY" 

BY  JAMES  A.  B.  SCHERER 

An  expansion  of  Dr.  Scherer's  lectures  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Universities  on  "Economic 
Causes  in  the  American  Civil  War,"  which  Dr. 
Holland  Rose  said  should  compel  a  re-writing  of 
American  history.  This  book  not  only  treats  of  the 
fascinating  r61e  of  "King  Cotton"  in  the  present 
War,  but  makes  out  a  powerful  case  for  the  domi- 
nance of  economic  motives  in  almost  all  wars,  and 
closes  with  a  lucid  philosophy  of  peace. 

OPINIONS: 

"The  romance  of  commerce  and  its  part  in  determining 
history  was  never  more  forcibly  presented." — Boston 
Globe. 

"The  most  interesting,  complete  history  of  cotton  ever 
written. " — Wall  Street  Journal. 

"No  economist  nor  business  man  can  afford  to  miss  the 
illumination  of  this  remarkable  book,  while  Dr.  Scherer's 
light  touch  and  easy  style  will  carry  even  the  casual  reader 
deep  into  a  volume  which  typifies  that  new  history  which 
digs  deep  beneath  the  apparent  fact  to  find  the  underlying 
cause  of  things," — Broadus  Mitchell  in  Baltimore  Sun. 

"Opens  with  the  fascination  of  romance  and  closes  with 
the  philosophy  of  statesmanship.  .  .  .  One  seldom 
finds  anywhere  in  one  work  such  a  comprehensive  range  of 
historic  interest  as  this  volume  affords." — Literary 
Digest. 


THE  NATION 
AT  WAR 


BY 

JAMES  A.  B.  SGHERER 

FOR  ONE  YEAR  CHIEF  FIELD  AGENT  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  NATIONAL 

DEFENSE,   STATE    COUNCILS    SECTION;    PRESIDENT   OF    THROOP 

COLLEGE  OF  TECHNOLOGY,  PASADENA,  CALIFORNIA;  AUTHOR 

OF  "COTTON  AS  A  WORLD  POWER,  A  STUDY  IN  THE 

ECONOMIC    INTERPRETATION    OF    HISTORY," 

"THE  JAPANESE  CRISIS,"  ETC. 


NEW  ^ar  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1918, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

Cr.    hi.   tl. 

IN  SCIENCE— ILLUSTRIOUS  AND  CONSUMMATE; 
IN  FRIENDSHIP— NOBLE  AND  SINCERE.' 


•Adapted  from  Browning. 


PREFACE 

The  Council  of  National  Defense  is  not  responsible 
for  this  book,  let  me  say  in  acknowledging  the  invalu- 
able assistance  derived  from  the  use  of  its  files  and 
from  suggestions  furnished  by  its  members.  "The 
Nation  at  War"  is  the  record  of  a  personal  experience, 
and  should  be  accepted  as  such. 

The  book  is  not  a  history  of  State  Councils,  and 
far  less  does  it  pretend  to  be  an  account  of  all  Ameri- 
can war  work.  The  treatment  of  the  States  is  indeed 
deliberately  uneven,  certainly  not  from  partiality  or 
prejudice,  but  simply  because,  within  the  limits  of  a 
single  handy  volume,  I  have  tried  to  give  the  casual 
reader  some  general  idea  of  what  the  State  Councils 
are  doing  as  a  whole.  This  I  have  thought  could  be 
more  effectively  done  by  "picking  out  the  high  lights" 
here  and  there  rather  than  by  covering  my  canvas 
with  a  flat  uniformity  of  detail.  Quite  frankly,  too, 
I  have  occasionally  dwelt  with  emphasis  on  the  less 
known  parts  of  the  country,  and  on  parts  that  are 
misunderstood. 

It  has  been  the  most  interesting  year  of  my  life, 
and  I  hope  I  can  impart  to  the  reader  some  notion  of 
the  thrilling  story  of  the  States  as  this  has  unrolled 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

itself  before  my  own  fortunate  eyes  in  more  than  a 
hundred  thousand  miles  of  national  travel. 

JAMES  A.  B.  SCHERER. 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C, 
August  12,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

i    "THE    CONFESSION    OF    A    DE-HYPHENATED 

AMERICAN" .     .  13 

II    AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR 19 

III  AN  AMERICAN  WAR 30 

IV  "  WASHINGTON  AND  THE  COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE     .     44 
v    "DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS    ....     58 

VL    "DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  FARTHER  DIXIE       .     .     76 
vn    "UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND 87 

VIII      "OUT    WEST":  NEBRASKA,  COLORADO,  NEW  MEX- 
ICO,   CALIFORNIA,    NEVADA 107 

ix    "OUT  WEST":  UTAH,  IDAHO,  OREGON,  WASHING- 
TON,  MONTANA 122 

X     ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  152 

XI     THE    RESEARCH    COUNCIL    AND    THE    SHIPPING 

BOARD        .- l66 

XII    PERSONALITIES 183 

XIII  PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST     .      .      .   189 

XIV  AMERICA  TO-MORROW 205 

APPENDIXES: 

A.  THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.       .     .     .   225 

B.  A  BRIEF  ECONOMIC   ARGUMENT  AGAINST    AN 

INCONCLUSIVE  PEACE 239 

C.  WHAT  THE  SIERRA  MADRE  CLUB  THINKS    OF 

"THE  LOS  ANGELES  EXAMINER"      .     .     .   243 

D.  A  LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT       .     .   250 

INDEX 275 

ix 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 


THE 

NATION  AT  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 
"THE  CONFESSION  OF  A  DE-HYPHENATED  AMERICAN" 

GERMANY — a  name  to  conjure  with !  Ever  since 
I  can  remember,  its  traditions,  historical,  educational, 
and  religious,  have  been  reverentially  instilled  into  my 
mind.  My  paternal  ancestors  came  to  North  Carolina 
from  the  Palatinate  about  a  century  and  a  half  ago, 
and  from  that  day  to  this  have  furnished  an  un- 
broken line  of  Evangelical  Lutheran  ministers.  Some 
of  them  fought  in  our  Revolutionary  War,  and  not  as 
Hessians  for  that  Hanoverian  King,  George  III.,  but 
as  Americans  under  the  leadership  of  Washington — 
following  the  illustrious  example  of  the  Rev.  J.  P.  G. 
Muhlenberg,  who,  at  the  close  of  a  patriotic  sermon  in 
the  old  Lutheran  church  at  Woodstock,  Virginia,  in 
1775,  dramatically  flung  aside  his  Lutheran  gown,  so 
exposing  the  uniform  of  a  Continental  soldier,  and 
then  led  his  fellow-Lutherans  into  the  war  for  Ameri- 
can independence.1  My  family  were  "de-hyphe- 

1  To  a  relation  who  complained  that  he  had  abandoned  the 
Church  for  the  State,  Muhlenberg  said:     "I  am  a  clergyman, 

13 


14  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

nated"  more  than  a  century  ago.  I  have  never  been  a 
"German-American;"  I  am  an  American  of  German 
descent. 

But  it  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  inten- 
sity of  the  pro-German  educational  influences  to  which 
I  and  many  others  like  me  have  been  subjected.  Above 
all,  we  were  taught  to  admire  the  German  Reforma- 
tion, and  everything  that  came  of  it,  including  the 
State  Church  of  modern  Germany.  Whenever,  as 
sometimes  seemed  to  some  of  us,  the  fruits  of  the 
German  Reformation  in  this  country  did  not  wholly 
justify  the  all-inclusive  claims  set  up  by  dogmatic 
teachers  for  the  ancient  tree,  we  were  told  that  for 
Teutonic  institutions  to  be  properly  appreciated  they 
must  be  observed  growing  on  their  own  native  soil; 
that  the  modern  Vaterland,  in  other  words,  was  a  liv- 

it  is  true,  but  I  am  a  member  of  society  as  well  as  the  poorest 
layman,  and  my  liberty  is  as  dear  to  me  as  to  any  man." 
Muhlenberg  at  once  marched  with  his  army  to  the  relief  of 
Charleston,  S.  C,  and  his  "German  regiment,"  the  8th  Vir- 
ginia, gained  a  reputation  for  discipline  and  bravery.  Made  a 
brigadier-general  in  1777,  he  became  major-general  before  Wash- 
ington's victorious  army  disbanded.  He  had  been  in  1774  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  his  county,  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Burgesses,  and  in  1776  was  delegate  to  the  State 
Convention.  On  returning  from  war  to  civil  pursuits  (in 
Pennsylvania)  he  was  at  once  elected  member  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Council,  was  in  1785  chosen  Vice-President  of  that 
State,  with  Benjamin  Franklin  as  President,  and  served  as 
presidential  elector  in  1797.  Elected  to  the  1st,  2d,  and  3d 
Congresses,  he  was  in  1801  chosen  to  the  U.  S.  Senate  (as  a 
Democrat),  but  resigned  before  Congress  met,  having  been 
appointed  by  President  Jefferson  Supervisor  of  the  Revenue 
from  the  District  of  Pennsylvania. 


THE  DE-HYPHENATED  AMERICAN      15 

ing  witness  to  the  spiritual  power  and  pre-eminent 
ethical  superiority  of  German  Protestantism. 

This  we  accepted  on  faith.  Any  one  curious  to  see 
the  personal  reaction  liable  to  be  produced  by  this  kind 
of  education  may  find  it  in  my  first  book,  "Four 
Princes,  or,  The  Growth  of  a  Kingdom"  ( 1903),  writ- 
ten on  the  basis  of  other  books  and  of  reverently  re- 
ceived hearsay,  and  culminating  in  a  treatment  of  Ger- 
man Protestantism  as  a  shining  example  of  "the  full 
corn  in  the  ear." 

In  1907  I  made  my  first  visit  to  Germany.  The 
result  was  a  violent  disillusionment.  I  went  intent 
upon  further  studies  of  German  Protestantism,  and  I 
came  back  resolved  never  again  to  open  my  mouth 
in  glorification  of  the  pre-eminent  spiritual  and  ethical 
power  of  modern  Germany.  In  my  opinion,  it  is 
wholly  unfair  to  measure  the  world-wide  movement 
set  up  by  the  Lutheran  Reformation,  as  I  had  been 
told  by  dogmatic  partisans  to  do,  by  contemporary 
Germany — clutched  in  the  grip  of  a  Prussianism 
which,  so  far  as  my  own  eyes  can  see,  gives  not  a  fig 
for  Luther's  faith  or  for  vital  Christianity  of  any 
kind.  Subsequent  visits  only  confirmed  the  impres- 
sion of  the  first  one.  Efficiency  I  found  to  an  im- 
pressive and  depressing  degree;  it  did  not  take  long 
to  find  out  that  Kultur  is  a  very  different  product 
from  culture.  Prussianism  I  came  up  against,  as 
against  a  solid  brass  wall,  everywhere;  but  Lutheran- 
ism,  as  a  spiritual  power,  had  to  be  looked  for.  The 
Prussian  Church  has  been  dominated  by  the  State; 
too  often  it  has  been  the  mere  tool  of  state-craft. 


16  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Far  from  being  the  obvious  fountain-head  of  dom- 
inant Teutonic  conduct,  as  I  had  been  taught  to  be- 
lieve, German  Lutheranism  seems  confined,  as  a  vital 
religious  power,  to  fruitful  obscurity.  I  am  aware 
that  some  of  my  best  friends  profess  a  different  ex- 
perience; I  can  only  recount  my  own.  In  fact,  the 
Germany  I  had  been  taught  to  believe  in  seems,  in 
a  word,  to  have  undergone  a  complete  metamorphosis ; 
the  Germany  of  Luther  and  Goethe  and  Beethoven, 
big  and  warm  and  tender  and  free,  has  been  shaped 
by  the  iron  hand  of  the  Hohenzollerns  into  a  mar- 
vellous but  soulless  machine,  tended  by  a  comfortable 
people  going  blind.  That  is  the  dominant  impression 
Germany  produced  on  me,  utterly  to  my  surprise,  in 
the  year  1907;  and  the  pride  I  take  in  my  German  an- 
cestors, who  came  to  this  country  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  is  scarcely  diminished  by  the  fact  that  they 
came  from  old  Germany  rather  than  new. 

It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  throw  off  wholly  the 
shell  of  a  shattered  tradition,  and  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  escape  from  the  deep  reverences  and  sym- 
pathies ingrained  by  prolonged  education  in  one  un- 
deviating  direction.  I  was  in  Europe  in  the  summer 
of  1914.  Returning  just  before  the  War  broke  out, 
fresh  from  the  liberalising  influences  of  European  con- 
tact, which  every  traveller  knows  how  to  appreciate, 
and  startled  by  the  apparent  rashness  of  the  outbreak, 
I  shut  myself  in  my  study  for  a  fortnight  and  tried, 
for  the  sake  of  old  blood  and  old  ties,  but  above  all 
for  the  sake  of  fair  play  and  justice,  to  get  the  mod- 


THE  DE-HYPHENATED  AMERICAN       17 

ern  German  point  of  view  regarding  this  War.  Not 
only  did  I  read  the  White  Paper  when  it  appeared,  but 
also,  again,  the  history  of  modern  Germany,  the  life 
of  Bismarck,  the  speeches  of  the  present  Emperor,  and 
the  works — in  part  at  least — of  Bernhardi  and 
Treitschke. 

As  for  the  German  White  Paper,  no  one,  however 
sympathetic,  could  read  it  carefully  without  wonder- 
ing over  the  cool  suppression  of  fundamental  parts  of 
Serbia's  amazingly  acquiescent  reply  to  the  severe  ul- 
timatum of  Austria,  which  reply  is  really  the  hinge 
in  which  turns  the  whole  heavy  responsibility  for  this 
War.  The  further  I  read  into  German  books,  seeking 
the  German  point  of  view,  the  more  was  I  led  by 
these  writings  themselves  away  from  all  possibility  of 
sympathy  to  a  conviction  which  has  gradually  become 
most  profound,  that  the  German  Government,  with  its 
highly  efficient  Kultur,  has,  in  deliberately  willing  this 
wholly  unnecessary  War,  with  its  much  boasted 
"frightfulness,"  reverted  to  a  barbarism  infinitely 
more  revolting  than  that  of  the  pre-Christian  epoch. 
With  a  cynicism  that  strikes  the  heart  cold,  this  Prus- 
sic  Germania  tears  the  sacred  law  of  contract,  on 
which  all  civilisation  is  founded,  into  scraps  of  paper, 
massacres  Belgium,  stealthily  murders  American 
women  and  children  on  the  high  seas,  and  outrages 
the  decencies  of  international  hospitality  by  convert- 
ing embassies  into  nests  of  intrigue  and  dishonour. 
This  is  only  the  ABC  of  the  Hohenzollern  alphabet  of 
crime ! 


18  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

I  had  been  a  pacifist  of  the  Norman  Angell  School. 
Because  I  believe  in  evolution,  I  still  believe  the  time 
will  come  when  an  international  tribunal  will  super- 
sede national  wars,  just  as  wars  among  nations  have 
superseded  successively  those  of  religions,  of  tribes, 
and  of  families.  But  since  the  spring  of  1916,  I  have 
postponed  my  pacifism  indefinitely,  and  devoted  such 
strength  as  I  have  to  the  cause  of  civilisation  against 
Germany. 


CHAPTER  II 

AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR 

ALTHOUGH  convinced  of  Germany's  guilt  in  the 
summer  of  1914,  I  did  not  speak  out  until  the  spring 
of  1916,  when,  incensed  by  a  German- American  news- 
paper, I  wrote  and  published  the  substance  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapter.1  Because  of  my  German  name,  this 
hyphenated  New  York  newspaper  had  had  the  ef- 
frontery to  rebuke  me  for  permitting  a  speech  on 
American  preparedness  to  be  made  by  James  R.  Gar- 
field  at  the  College  of  which  I  am  President  away 
out  in  Pasadena,  California! 

Those  were  strange  days.  It  is  difficult  now  to 
realise  the  extent  to  which  we  were  bullied  and  muz- 
zled by  the  hyphenated  press  propaganda,  which  at 
length  so  over-reached  itself  that  the  German  Emperor 
himself  issued  a  public  warning  to  "his  people"  here 
in  America  to  be  more  discreet  and  less  noisy.  For 
my  part,  I  was  "boiled  in  oil"  in  the  German-Amer- 
ican press,  and  "drawn  and  quartered" — that  is  what 
they  actually  said  should  be  done  to  this  "renegade" 

*  In  the  New  York  Times,  April  20,  1916.  Reprinted  (in  large 
part)  by  the  Literary  Digest.  Widely  circulated  as  a  tract  by 
the  American  Rights  Committee,  New  York  City,  and  other 
similar  agencies. 

19 


20  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

who  had  "turned  his  back  on  his  people  even  as  cer- 
tain base  scoundrels,  in  American  pioneer  days,  for- 
sook their  white  kinsmen  to  consort  with  blood- 
thirsty savages!" 

On  the  other  hand,  I  received  from  many  Amer- 
icans of  German  ancestry  letters  commending  my 
stand,  most  of  them,  however,  adding  that  considera- 
tions of  a  business  or  social  character  must  prevent 
the  publication  of  names.  Some  of  these  letters  I 
published  (without  naming  the  writers)  in  the  New 
York  Times  of  May  n,  I9I6.1  Here  is  one,  from  a 
beloved  teacher  of  my  youth,  an  honoured  professor 
in  a  Lutheran  college,  a  man  of  pure  German  descent, 
and  of  intimate  acquaintance  with  Germany: 

"My  own  conviction,"  he  wrote — "one  that  grows 
stronger  every  day — is  that  the  military  oligarchy  of 
Germany  has  been  actuated  by  a  purely  bandit  spirit, 
and  that  the  future  peace  of  the  world  depends  on 
the  crushing  of  this  dominant  power  in  that  country. 
Furthermore,  I  am  growing  very  tired  of  German 
plotting  and  agitation  in  this  country.  The  German 
press  is  treasonable;  and  were  the  editors  to  suffer 
the  fate  that  would  meet  them  in  Germany  I  should 
not  shed  a  tear." 

The  very  day  I  wrote  my  "confession,"  and  quite  by 
coincidence,  there  came  a  communication  from  one  of 
the  most  prominent  Lutheran  laymen  in  America  in 
which  he  complained  that  certain  Lutheran  periodicals 
were  "so  strongly  pro-German,  and  so  strongly  in- 
clined to  be  anti-American,  that  we  have  come  to  the 
*See  also  the  Literary  Digest,  May  27,  1916,  pp.  I537-I53& 


AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR  21 

pass  at  which  non-Lutheran  readers  of  such  journals 
put  Lutherans  down  as  antagonistic  to  their  own  Gov- 
ernment." One  of  my  chief  reasons  in  writing  my 
own  brief  "confession"  was  the  desire  to  efface  as 
much  as  I  could  of  the  treasonable  stigma  that  had 
been  affixed  on  Americans  having  German  names  by 
the  noisy  effrontery  of  a  few  bigots,  and  long  tolerated 
by  a  silent  forbearance  that  at  length  ceased  to  be 
virtuous.  It  was  an  interesting  coincidence,  at  least, 
that  every  attack  on  my  position  that  came  to  my 
notice  contained  also  an  attack  either  on  the  national 
Administration  for  its  failure  to  surrender  wholly  to 
Prussia,  or  on  American  institutions  as  a  whole ;  while 
the  essence  of  my  own  offense  was  expressed  in  the 
copious  use  of  such  epithets  as  "renegade"  and 
"traitor,"  the  c  in  my  name  outweighing,  in  the  minds 
of  these  hyphenates,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  un- 
broken American  lineage ! 

Among  the  commendations  of  my  "confession"  was 
the  following  letter  from  a  prominent  Lutheran  clergy- 
man: 

"I  can  not  forbear  taking  time,  in  Holy  Week 
though  it  be,  for  thanking  you  for  your  very  fine  letter 
in  this  morning's  New  York  Times.  I  have  myself 
been  deterred  from  attempting  just  such  a  statement 
solely  because  I  did  not  wish  to  give  offense  to  my 
friends  and  parishioners.  It  is  a  wholly  admirable 
statement  and  tells  the  story  for  many  of  us  who  have 
been  in  grave  danger  of  confusing  religion  with  mod- 
ern Germanism.  One  sees  now  where  our  extreme 
apologetics  brought  us  and  how  near  we  have  come  to 
being  wrecked  on  the  rocks  of  Teutonism  rather  than 


22  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

borne  along  on  the  great  deep  currents  of  an  Evan- 
gelical faith  which  is  not  confined  anywhere,  least  of 
all  by  the  wretchedly  narrow  limits  of  one  very  con- 
stricted people.  ...  I  feel  very  keenly  a  certain  hu- 
miliation at  having  been  submissive  to  the  roaring  bull- 
dozing of  the  pro-German  defenders  of  our  Church, 
who  have  so  long  held  the  whip  over  us  and  made  us 
believe  in  their  little  type  of  self-conscious  religion. 
So  easily  may  we  be  fettered  when  we  forget  what  is 
'the  eternal  price  of  liberty/  national  or  religious." 

The  Lutheran  Church  has  now  officially  purged  it- 
self from  the  Prussian  blot  with  which  it  was  stig- 
matised by  a  few  of  its  followers.  The  great  "Gen- 
eral Council,"  at  its  meeting  in  Philadelphia  (on  Oc- 
tober 24,  1917)  unanimously  adopted  the  following 
clear  declaration,  to  be  emulated  by  other  general 
bodies: 

We,  the  Members  of  the  General  Council  of  the 
Evangelical  Lutheran  Church,  in  convention  assembled 
in  this  notable  year  of  the  Quadri-Centennial  of  the 
Reformation,  representing  over  800,000  communicant 
members,  conscious  of  our  sacred  duty  •  before 
Almighty  God  in  these  trying  times,  and  deeply  moved 
by  the  great  and  serious  task  which  they  have  imposed 
upon  our  Government;  and  mindful  of  the  heroic 
deeds  and  noble  sacrifices  of  our  forefathers  at  every 
crisis  in  the  history  of  our  beloved  country,  do  hereby 
present  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions: 

WHEREAS,  We  are  mindful  of  the  good  order  and 
happiness  flowing  from  attachment  to  the  principles 
upon  which  our  Government  is  founded,  and  sin- 
cerely hold  and  believe  that  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of 
those  in  authority  to  provide  for  the  enactment  and 
enforcement  of  laws  to  the  end  that  the  rights,  pre- 


AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR  «3 

rogatives  and  obligations  of  American  citizenship  may 
be  secured,  maintained  and  met; 

WHEREAS,  The  doctrinal  basis  of  the  Evangelical 
Lutheran  Church,  expressed  in  the  principles  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession,  to  which  the  ministry  and  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  are  solemnly  obligated,  commands 
loyalty  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States: 

Therefore,  be  it  resolved: — i.  That  we  remember 
before  God  and  record  before  man,  our  deep  gratitude 
that  the  United  States  have  rightly  maintained  liberty 
of  conscience,  freedom  of  worship  and  a  separation 
of  Church  and  State,  which  are  precious  heritages  of 
the  Reformation  and  under  which  our  Church  has 
enjoyed  unbroken  prosperity. 

2.  That  we  pray  Almighty  God  to  grant  us,  the 
American  people,  together  with  our  Allies,  a  complete 
and  decisive  victory  over  our  enemies,  in  order  that 
our  ancient  liberties  may  be  preserved  and  deepened; 
and    that   justice,    righteousness   and   that    freedom, 
which  is  our  sacred  heritage,  may  be  enjoyed  by  the 
nations  of  the  earth. 

3.  That  we  express  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  our  Christian  sympathy  and  loyal  devotion, 
and   beseech   our   Heavenly   Father  to   sustain   and 
strengthen  him  with  all  needed  grace,  and  that  we 
most  earnestly  pledge  to  him  our  support  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  constitutional  authority  as  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States, 
in  his  high  and  earnest  purpose  "to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy." 

4.  That  we  express  our  earnest  co-operation  in  all 
constructive  efforts  to  bring  this  great  war  to  a  just 
issue,  and  that  we  encourage  all  our  people  to  give 
their  enthusiastic  support  to  the  efforts  of  our  Govern- 
ment for  the  conservation  and  control  of  food  sup- 
plies, to  all  Liberty  Loans,  to  the  work  of  the  Red 


24  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Cross  and  to  all  agencies  which  promote  the  welfare 
of  our  soldiers  and  sailors. 

5.  That  we  record  with  just  pride  the  fact  that  so 
many  of  our  young  men  have  gone  forth  from  our 
congregations  at  their  country's  call ;  that  we  pray  that 
they,  and  all  the  young  men  of  our  Army  and  Navy, 
be    found    courageous    and    chivalrous,    strong    and 
heroic,  pure,  temperate,  manly  and  just;  that  we  be- 
seech God  to  defend  them  in  all  danger  and  save  them 
from  temptation;  that  we  urge  all  men  cheerfully  to 
respond  to  the  call  to  arms  and  utterly  condemn  those 
who  in  any  way  falter  or  obstruct  the  carrying  out 
of  the  laws  of  our  land ;  holding,  as  we  do,  that  upon 
the  declaration  of  a  state  of  war  every  loyal  man  and 
woman  becomes  a  trustee  of  his  time  and  talents,  life 
and  fortunes  for  our  country. 

6.  That  we  unite  in  prayer  to  Almighty  God  to 
give  us  as  a  nation  a  due  sense  of  His  overruling 
providence,  so  that  we  may  enjoy  that  security  which 
can  only  be  obtained  by  a  unity  of  purpose  and  effort 
which  will  command  and  receive  the  respect  of  the 
whole  world ;  securing  in  the  end  victory  to  our  arms, 
and  the  blessing  of  a  speedy,  honourable  and  lasting 
peace. 

7.  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  transmitted 
to  His  Excellency,  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  all  Lutheran  chaplains  at  their  posts  of  service. 

Of  almost  equal  importance,  and  certainly  of  equal 
interest,  are  the  following  resolutions,  prepared  by 
Dr.  Theodore  E.  Schmauk,  and  adopted  by  the  Penn- 
sylvania "Ministerium"  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  May 
21,  1918: 

WHEREAS,  there  appears  to  be  an  impression  widely 
prevalent  that  the  Lutheran  Church  in  America  is  a 


AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR  85 

foreign  Church,  and  that  the  members  of  this  Minis- 
terium  are  newcomers  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
we  hereby  lay  down  the  following  declaration  of  fact 
and  principle: 

1.  That  the  Lutheran  Church  is  a  world  Church, 
and  not  the  offshoot  of  any  State  Church  in  Germany. 
It  was  found  in  England,  France  and  Italy  four  cen- 
turies ago.     It  is  found  in  Norway,  Sweden,  Iceland, 
Finland,  Russia,  Australia,  Canada,  the  United  States, 
no  less  than  in  Germany.     In  no  case  has  the  Lutheran 
Church  in  the  United  States  any  connection  with  any 
Church  in  Germany,  least  of  all  with  that  of  which 
the  Kaiser  is  the  head.     The  Kaiser  himself  is  not  a 
Lutheran,  but  he  and  his  father  and  grandfather  are 
of  Reformed  stock,  and  the  Prussian  Union,  which 
they  founded,  is  composed  of  Reformed  and  Lutheran 
elements.     Up  to  1907  this  Prussian  Imperial  Church 
had  no  organic  association  even  with  the  International 
Lutheran  Conference,  with  which  the  General  Council 
of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  North  America  has  had 
affiliation,  so  far  as  great  meetings  for  representing 
a  world  Lutheranism  was  concerned.     But  since  1907, 
in  which  year  the  Imperial  Prussian  Church  acquired 
some  control  of   the   International   Conference,   the 
General  Council  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  America, 
to  which  this  Ministerium  belongs,  has  been  in  an  atti- 
tude of  protest  against  the  International  Conference, 
and  has  stood  for  a  re-organisation  of  this  World 
Conference  of  Lutherans  on  American  principles. 

2.  The    Ministerium    of    Pennsylvania   is   not   an 
exotic    Church    in    America.     Fifty    years    before 
William  Penn  its  very  earliest  membership  was  in- 
vited to  settle  in  Pennsylvania.     The  Ministerium  was 
organised  and  in  full  operation  a  quarter  of  a  century 
before  the  American  Revolution.     Its  leaders  and  its 
membership  were  all  patriots  in  the  colonial  era,  and 


S6  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

they  have  participated  in  a  marked  and  effective  de- 
gree in  all  the  wars  of  our  nation  from  the  French 
and  Indian  and  the  Revolutionary  War  down.  The 
original  members  of  this  venerable  Ministerium  took 
an  illustrious  part  in  the  founding  of  our  American 
nation,  and  at  its  birth  many  of  them  sealed  their 
loyalty  with  their  life-blood  on  the  battlefields  of  the 
Revolution.  To-day  this  Ministerium  stands  squarely 
with  its  President  in  his  actions  and  utterances.  It 
not  only  supports  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
in  the  present  war,  but  it  stands  for  and  believes  itself 
to  be  an  exponent  of  those  free  principles  of  govern- 
ment to  secure  which,  throughout  the  world,  the 
present  world  war  is  being  fought.  This  Ministerium 
believes  that  the  principles  for  which  Martin  Luther 
stood  out  against  the  Church  and  the  Imperial  State 
in  his  day,  in  behalf  of  the  conscience  and  liberties  of 
the  people,  are  the  principles  for  which  the  United 
States  is  contending  at  this  moment;  and  it  here  and 
now  pledges  itself  anew,  even  to  its  last  drop  of  blood, 
in  its  attempt  to  make  sure  that  a  government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people,  shall  not 
perish  from  the  earth;  and  that  in  religion  every  in- 
dividual shall  have  the  right  to  worship  God  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience;  and 
we  believe  that  our  words  and  acts  will  ever  testify  to 
our  Synodical  loyalty  to  American  ideals  and  Ameri- 
can institutions. 

My  belief,  as  expressed  in  May,  1916,  has  been  ful- 
filled :  "that  in  the  event  of  war  between  this  country 
and  Germany,  fully  ninety  per  cent  of  American  citi- 
zens with  German  names  would  be  loyal  to  their 
citizenship,  but  that  the  remaining  tithe,  who  do  most 
of  the  talking  and  writing,  would  constitute  a  very 
grave  menace." 


AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR  37 

The  "ninety  per  cent"  of  us  were  long  restrained 
from  utterance — not  by  any  vestige  of  sympathy  with 
Prussia,  indeed,  but  by  the  solemn  injunction  of  our 
President. 

President  Wilson's  first  acts  on  taking  office  in  1913 
had  won  from  me  a  very  high  regard.  Besides  the 
respect  due  to  his  office,  I  felt  for  him — on  account 
of  his  attitude  on  the  Panama  Tolls  question  pre- 
eminently, but  also  because  of  such  Acts  as  the  re- 
vision of  the  tariff  and  the  reform  of  our  banking 
and  currency  system — a  personal  regard  so  profound 
that  in  spite  of  my  own  deep  convictions  concerning 
the  War,  I  did  my  best  to  obey  his  neutrality  procla- 
mation of  August  19,  1914,  when  he  said: 

"I  venture,  my  fellow  countrymen,  to  speak  a  sol- 
emn word  of  warning  to  you  against  that  deepest,  most 
subtle,  most  essential  breach  of  neutrality  which  may 
spring  out  of  partisanship,  out  of  passionately  taking 
sides.  The  United  States  must  be  neutral  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  name  during  these  days  that  are  to  try 
men's  souls.  We  must  be  impartial  in  thought  as 
well  as  in  action,  must  put  a  curb  upon  our  senti- 
ments as  well  as  upon  every  transaction  that  might 
be  construed  as  a  preference  of  one  party  to  the  strug- 
gle before  another."1 

Obedience  to  this  last  injunction  was  impossible;  I 
could  not  be  neutral  in  thought.  But  from  August, 
1914,  until  April,  1916 — in  spite  of  the  Lusitania 
crime  of  May,  1915 — I  obeyed  the  President's  other 

1  President  Wilson's  State  Papers  and  Addresses :  New  York, 
1918;  p.:  219. 


28  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

requests  scrupulously.  Then  I  gave  way.  The  ver- 
bal safety-valve  of  my  "confession,"  however,  was  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  satisfaction  I  got  in  at- 
tending the  Monterey  Training  Camp — our  Califor- 
nia Plattsburg — in  the  summer  of  1916.  But  there  is 
no  use  trying  to  express  it:  the  emotions  that  thou- 
sands of  Americans  suffered,  until  we  finally  entered 
the  War  in  April,  1917,  can  never  be  set  down  on 
paper.  When  my  only  boy — not  yet  twenty  years 
old — decided  for  himself  in  March,  1917,  that  he  must 
leave  for  the  battle  front,  and  left,  I  remember  that 
my  first  act  was  to  answer  a  long-unanswered  letter 
from  my  best  friend  in  England,  the  aged  Sir  William 
Mather,  and  to  begin  it  by  telling  him  that  now  at  last 
I  could  once  more  look  an  English  gentleman  in  the 
face  without  blushing.  When  the  news  had  reached 
us  in  California  on  the  morning  of  February  3,  1917, 
that  the  President  had  announced  the  severance  of 
diplomatic  relations  with  Germany,  I  remember  weep- 
ing with  a  sense  of  relief  from  deep  shame.  And  I 
shall  never  forget  that  April  night  in  San  Francisco 
when  the  great  War  Message  came  over  the  wires! 
Then  again  did  we  glory  in  our  President :  the  most  pa- 
tient man  in  human  history,  not  excepting  the  patri- 
arch Job;  and  now  we  looked  to  see  the  traditional 
anger  of  the  patient  man  when  fully  roused,  and  our 
hearts  burned  within  us  as  Americans! 

Now  at  last  one  could  speak  out,  his  country  sanc- 
tioning. At  Throop  College  we  "speeded  up"  com- 
mencement by  a  month,  so  as  to  turn  the  campus  into  a 
training  camp.  In  that  bright  May  of  renewed  na- 


AMERICA  ENTERS  THE  WAR  29 

tional  splendour  I  spoke  to  our  boys  of  "Our  Prob- 
lem." And  because  this  book  is  nothing  unless  a 
"human  document" — the  story  of  an  American  life  in 
relation  to  the  Great  War — I  will  set  down  some  of 
the  things  I  then  said  to  them.  I  have  another  reason, 
too,  for  reprinting  some  of  those  words.  This  book 
is  called,  "The  Nation  at  War."  The  Hearst  papers 
used  to  be  fond  of  saying  (until  the  Sedition  Act  of 
May  1 6,  1918,  muzzled  them)1  that  this  is  not  Amer- 
ica's war,  but  Europe's  war.  I  tried  to  show  my  boys 
in  1917  that  this  is  America's  war,  just  as  truly  as 
the  Revolution  itself  was.  Perhaps  such  a  chapter  is 
necessary  to  a  book  on  America  at  War. 

It  is  impossible  to  write  such  a  book  at  the  present 
time  without  getting  more  or  less  into  politics.  Per- 
haps I  may  be  permitted  to  say  once  for  all  that  I  have 
always  been  an  Independent  in  politics.  I  owe  al- 
legiance to  no  party,  but  judge  it  by  its  platform,  and 
especially  by  the  personality  of  its  chosen  leader.  But 
personal  partisanship  is  in  my  judgment  quite  as  mis- 
chievous as  party  partisanship.  On  this  point  Lin- 
coln gave  us  good  advice  when  he  said :  "Stand  with 
anybody  that  stands  right.  Stand  with  him  while  he 
is  right  and  part  with  him  when  he  goes  wrong.  In 
both  cases  you  are  right.  To  desert  such  ground  is  to 
be  less  than  a  man,  less  than  an  American." 

*See  Appendix  A,  final  article. 


CHAPTER  III 

AN  AMERICAN  WAR 

FORTUNATELY,  it  is  now  ancient  history— I 
said  to  my  college  boys  at  their  commencement  in 
1917, — but  America  has  been  involved  in  intellectual 
strife  during  the  last  few  months.  Controversies 
breed  epithets ;  and  so  we  have  heard  one  hostile  camp 
denouncing  the  other  as  militarist,  while  they,  in  turn, 
have  been  branded  as  pacifists.  Speaking  more  broad- 
ly and  less  offensively  it  would  be  fair  to  say  that 
one  of  these  groups  has  emphasised  in  these  perilous 
times  the  need  of  efficiency,  while  the  other  has  clung 
to  its  faith  in  idealism.  It  takes  no  prophet  to  discern 
that  the  great  problem  for  the  future  of  America  is 
involved  in  the  question  whether  these  conflicting 
forces  can  be  reconciled,  and  national  efficiency  be 
combined  with  democratic  ideals. 

That  Americans  are  capable  of  high  efficiency  is 
known  to  all  men.  We  demonstrate  it  in  our  capacity 
for  business  and  industrial  organisation.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  celebration  of  the  fiftieth  anniver- 
sary of  the  "Boston  Tech."  To  take  part  in  it  I  did 
not  go  to  Boston,  I  simply  rode  down  to  Los  Angeles. 
Allowance  having  been  made  for  the  difference  in 
time,  the  Tech  alumni  in  Los  Angeles  sat  down  at 

30 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  81 

exactly  the  same  moment  as  the  alumni  in  Boston, 
and  banqueted.  A  little  rubber  disk  lay  beside  each 
plate,  while  in  front  of  the  toastmaster  stood  a  tele- 
phone transmitter.  At  the  close  of  the  banquet  we 
placed  the  tiny  receivers  to  our  ears,  and  heard  the 
Boston  speeches  and  the  toasts,  and  the  "rah,  rah, 
rah!"  of  the  Boston  alumni.  Nor  was  that  all. 

A  score  or  so  of  cities  were  linked  by  wire  with 
Boston  just  as  we  were;  and  we  could  hear  New  Or- 
leans singing  "Dixie,"  while  New  York  sang  "Yankee 
Doodle"  and  Washington  thrilled  all  our  hearts  with 
the  strains  of  "The  Star  Spangled  Banner."  San 
Francisco  and  Los  Angeles  and  the  two  Portlands; 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis;  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Puget 
Sound ; — the  hearts  and  voices  of  a  thousand  men  all 
over  this  broad  continent  were  linked  by  magic  spokes 
to  the  Boston  "hub"  through  the  genius  of  American 
efficiency. 

We  learned,  moreover,  that  when  the  morning 
hour  of  three  should  strike,  all  this  vast  network  of 
wires  would  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  then  deep  would  call  unto  deep,  most  lit- 
erally, across  a  thousand  leagues  of  mountain  and 
valley  and  desert.  For  the  ships  in  the  Atlantic  then 
shout  through  the  air  to  the  great  wireless  stations 
on  shore;  the  American  telephone  system  catches  their 
cry,  and  flashes  it  here  to  the  Pacific;  whence  once 
more  the  sound  waves  roll  off  through  the  air  to  our 
vessels  out  in  the  ocean,  and  the  two  seas  are  blended 
into  one  at  the  touch  of  American  skill. 

This  is  one  instance  out  of  a  thousand  that  might 


32  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

be  cited  of  our  demonstrated  capacity  for  efficiency 
as  applied  to  the  organisation  of  business;  but  when 
we  consider  national  affairs — alas,  that  is  another 
story ! 

Take  the  conservation  of  our  natural  resources,  and 
the  story  is  nothing  short  of  lamentable.  Forest  fires, 
which  could  be  stopped  at  an  expense  of  one-fifth  the 
value  of  the  merchantable  timber  burned,  cost  us 
$50,000,000  a  year,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  our 
lumbering  is  so  unintelligent  that  of  each  thousand 
feet  we  cut,  680  are  wasted.  Damage  from  floods  is 
preventable,  and  yet  since  1900  the  direct  yearly  in- 
jury from  them  has  increased  steadily  from  $45,- 
000,000  to  over  $238,000,000.  We  utilise  $62,000,000 
worth  of  natural  gas  every  year,  the  most  perfect  fuel 
known,  and  permit  an  equal  amount  to  escape  into  the 
air;  and  our  supply  of  petroleum  cannot  be  expected  to 
last  beyond  the  middle  of  the  century.  Our  spend- 
thrift agriculture  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  our 
average  yield  of  wheat  has  until  recently  been  only 
fourteen  bushels  an  acre,  as  against  twenty-eight  bush- 
els in  Germany  and  thirty-two  bushels  in  England. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  personal  vitality.  There 
are  constantly  about  3,000,000  people  seriously  ill  in 
the  United  States;  but  more  than  half  of  this  ill- 
ness is  easily  preventable,  and  if  we  only  used  our 
knowledge  we  could  at  once  add  fifteen  years  to  the 
average  length  of  American  life — yet  the  president  of 
a  life  insurance  company  told  me  the  other  day  that 
whereas  in  the  year  I  was  born  a  man  of  my  present 
age  had  an  expectation  of  twenty-one  years  of  life, 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  93 

to-day  he  has  but  twenty,  showing  that  in  spite  of  our 
increase  in  knowledge  we  are  actually  making  prog- 
ress backwards.  There  are  85,000  young  men  in  our 
colleges  and  universities  to-day,  but  I  am  told  by  an 
eminent  physician  that  there  are  87,000  young  men  in 
our  lunatic  and  idiot  asylums.  There  are  400,000 
feeble-minded  children  in  our  public  schools,  while 
between  60  per  cent  and  70  per  cent  of  our  school 
children  are  afflicted  with  serious  physical  defects. 
West  Point  rejects  for  physical  deficiencies  30  per 
cent  of  its  applicants  for  admission,  while  Annapolis 
is  able  to  admit  only  30  per  cent  of  such  applicants; 
and  only  one  out  of  five  recruits  is  able  to  get  into 
the  army.1  If  "national  service"  should  accomplish 
nothing  else  it  will  be  of  great  value  to  our  people  by 
imposing  a  check  on  our  threatened  physical  degen- 
eracy. 

But  we  ought  to  introduce  efficient  and  economic 
management  into  our  army.  We  have  been  spending 
enough  on  a  standing  army  of  fifty  thousand  men  to 
support,  according  to  the  more  intelligent  methods 
used  by  Japan,  an  army  of  a  million  men  on  a  peace 
footing;  or  to  enable  Europe  to  maintain  an  efficient 
army  half  that  large,  together  with  reserves  of  regu- 
lars varying  from  two  million  to  five  million  men, 
whereas  we  have  had  no  reserves  of  regulars  what- 
soever. We  have  been  scarcely  more  efficient  in  army 
management  than  in  "conservation."  As  to  the  navy, 
Admiral  Fletcher  recently  testified  that  a  foe  could 
land  at  any  time  on  almost  any  foot  of  our  two 

'This  was  tinder  the  old  conditions,  on  a  peace  footing. 


34  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

thousand  miles  of  coast  line  for  anything  the  navy 
cotild  do  to  prevent  it! 

The  people  of  the  country  are  going  to  find  out 
within  the  next  few  months  (this  was  in  May,  1917) 
that  conditions  have  not  been  exaggerated  regarding 
our  army  and  navy,  but  that  it  would  be  almost  im- 
possible to  exaggerate  the  inefficiency  that  obtains 
in  numerous  vital  particulars.  They  are  going  to  find 
out  that  a  Government  training  school  is  conducted  at 
which  forty  or  fifty  of  the  flower  of  our  youth  arrive 
every  day  without  the  necessary  clothing  being  pro- 
vided for  them,  and  where  three  hundred  of  them  are 
huddled  into  a  single  room  with  only  one  wash  basin 
for  the  lot,  and  the  nearest  bath  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away.  The  men  who  are  coming  to  Camp  Throop  are 
coming  because  the  bounty  of  a  few  individuals  makes 
'this  camp  possible,  and  where  we  are  lucky  to  get  from 
[the  Government  any  equipment  at  all.  Those  who 
go  to  the  Presidio  are  going  to  find  a  splendid  group 
of  officers  endeavouring  to  stretch  a  yard  of  supply 
to  cover  a  mile  of  need,  and  distributing  pamphlets, 
to  keep  up  the  spirit  of  the  men,  showing  that  the 
British  democracy  had  to  put  up  with  similar  in- 
efficiency in  1914.  Democracies  to-day  appear  in 
sharp  contrast  with  autocracies  in  the  matter  of  ef- 
ficient national  administration.  Here  in  America  we 
are  notable  for  effective  business  organisation,  but 
notorious  for  ineffectual  Government  administration. 

There  is  no  question  whatever  that  if  democracy 
ig  to  survive  as  a  form  of  government  it  must  con- 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  35 

duct  its  affairs  in  a  business-like  manner — in  a  word, 
demonstrate  its  efficiency. 

One  cause  of  our  national  inefficiency  is  found  in 
our  fondness  for  idealism.  Foreign  critics  greatly  err 
who  characterise  the  Americans  as  lacking  in  this 
quality  or  tendency.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  a 
highly  romantic  and  imaginative  people.  This  is  not 
to  say,  however,  that  our  idealism  is  always  sound; 
sometimes  it  is  far  from  it.  Lotus-eating  has  nothing 
to  do  with  idealism;  it  is  merely  a  euphemism  for 
luxurious  sloth.  Rich  Americans  whose  literary  edu- 
cation expresses  itself  in  the  soft  philosophy  of  Omar 
Khayyam — "A  jug  of  wine,  a  loaf  of  bread,  and 
thou,"  minus  the  "book  of  verse," — are  not  idealists 
in  any  true  sense  of  the  word,  but  may  be  more  truth- 
fully described  as  parasitic  degenerates  fattening  off 
a  body  politic  of  which  they  are  wholly  unworthy. 

Softness  should  not  be  confused  with  idealism,  and 
neither  should  sentimentality.  Let  me  show  what  I 
mean  by  an  incident  illustrated  with  a  few  verses. 
Some  of  us  within  the  past  few  weeks  have  seen  our 
boys  stirring  to  the  high  call  of  duty,  and  have  bidden 
them  farewell  and  Godspeed  as  they  enlisted  under 
the  banner  of  a  militan*  democracy.  For  reward  we 
have  received  from  certain  of  our  compatriots  criti- 
cism amounting  to  denunciation;  we  have  been  called 
un-American,  un-Christian,  and  even  inhuman.  But 
other  voices  have  reached  us  besides  these.  Dean 
Healy,  for  example,  of  the  University  of  Southern 
California,  has  sent  me  verses  that  I  shall  venture  to 
read  to  you.  They  were  called  out  by  a  poem  that 


36  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Edwin  Markham  wrote  for  a  meeting  of  the  "Inter- 
national Workers,"  in  which  these  lines  occur: 

O  mothers,  will  you  longer  give  your  sons 
To  feed  the  awful  hunger  of  the  guns? 
What  is  the  worth  of  all  these  battle-drums 
If  from  the  field  the  loved  one  never  comes? 
What  all  these  loud  hosannas  to  the  brave 
If  all  your  share  is  some  forgotten  grave? 

To  that  question  Dr.  James  L.  Hughes,  of  Canada, 
wrote  the  following  answer.  Greater  significance  is 
given  to  his  poetic  answer,  I  may  say,  by  the  fact  that 
his  own  son  was  killed  in  action  some  time  ago  and 
now  lies  buried  in  France.  He  entitles  his  reply  to 
Markham,  "The  Truly  Unselfish  Mother's  Answer." 

God  gave  my  son  in  trust  to  me. 
Christ  died  for  him,  and  he  should  be 
A  man  for  Christ.     He  is  his  own, 
And  God's  and  man's;  not  mine  alone. 
He  was  not  mine  to  "give."     He  gave 
Himself  that  he  might  help  to  save 
All  that  a  Christian  should  revere, 
All  that  enlightened  men  hold  dear. 

"To  feed  the  guns"!     Oh,  torpid  soul! 
Awake,  and  see  life  as  a  whole! 
When  freedom,  honour,  justice,  right, 
Were  threatened  by  the  despot's  might, 
With  heart  aflame  and  soul  alight 
He  bravely  went  for  God  to  fight 
Against  base  savages  whose  pride 
The  laws  of  God  and  man  defied; 
Who  slew  the  mother  and  her  child  ; 
Who  maidens  pure  and  sweet  defiled. 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  37 

He  did  not  go  "to  feed  the  guns," 
He  went  to  save  from  ruthless  Huns 
His  home  and  country,  and  to  be 
A  guardian  of  democracy. 

"What  if  he  does  not  come?"  you  say; 

Ah,  well!     My  sky  would  be  more  grey, 

But  through  the  clouds  the  sun  would  shine> 

And  vital  memories  be  mine. 

God's  test  of  manhood  is,  I  know, 

Not,  'Will  he  come?"  but,  "Dm  HE  GO?" 

So  long  as  America  clings  to  its  idealism  we  need 
have  no  fear  of  militarism,  which  has  never  in  all 
the  history  of  the  world  been  associated  with  any 
system  of  democracy.  Democracy  is  essentially  ideal- 
istic; its  danger  comes  from  a  totally  different  direc- 
tion from  that  of  militarism,  and  springs  from  slip- 
shodness,  from  lack  of  foresight  and  preparation, 
from  the  silly  dictum  that  "everybody's  business  is  no- 
body's business."  The  great  problem  of  democracy 
is  to  combine  efficiency  with  idealism  if  it  is  to  sur- 
vive and  see  its  ideals  triumph  in  the  world. 

By  all  means  let  us  be  faithful  to  our  national  ideals, 
but  let  us  be  sure  that  we  know  what  those  ideals 
really  are.  In  times  like  this  we  need  to  refresh  our 
spirit  at  the  historic  fountains  from  which  our  na- 
tional ideals  arose. 

In  1914  the  steamship  in  which  I  crossed  the  At- 
lantic touched  at  Plymouth,  where  unexpected  circum- 
stances compelled  me  to  remain  for  a  fortnight.  Com- 
pact masses  of  old  brown  brick  houses  crowd  in  rows 
on  the  rolling  hills,  which  suddenly  plunge  down  a 


88  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

steep  declivity  into  the  bay.  The  top  of  the  hill  near- 
est the  sea  is  swept  clear  and  smooth  as  a  plaza;  it  is 
the  famous  "Hoe"  where  Drake  was  playing  his  game 
of  bowls  when  the  Spanish  Armada  was  sighted,  and 
where  a  heroic  bronze  statue  of  Drake  gazes  out  over 
the  waters,  a  religious  inscription  on  the  pedestal  tell- 
ing the  story  as  the  Puritans  saw  it :  "He  blew  with 
His  winds  and  scattered  them."  Often  I  climbed  to 
the  Hoe,  "the  soft  tread  of  history  under  my  feet," 
never  without  a  thrill;  but  the  deep  religious  surge  of 
emotion  came  when  I  clambered  down  through  the 
crooked  narrow  streets  to  the  "old  town,"  and  stood 
level  with  the  waves  on  the  dock,  where  a  tablet  marks 
the  exact  spot  from  which  the  Mayflower  sailed. 

By  an  effort  of  the  imagination  one  calls  back  the 
scene  of  that  sailing.  So  I  could  see  at  length  in  my 
mind's  eye  the  frail  little  cooped-up  shallop  drawing 
away  through  the  bay  to  the  ocean;  faces  crowding 
each  square  port-hole,  kerchiefs  waving,  as  the  sails 
caught  the  wind  and  the  waves  began  tossing  the 
cockle-shell  out  to  sea ;  the  very  dock  on  which  I  was 
standing  crowded  with  brave  women  striving  to  keep 
back  the  tears  and  smile  a  farewell  to  the  loved  faces 
that  were  now  only  a  white  blur  against  the  black 
side  of  the  diminishing  ship. 

Seeking  liberty,  these  pilgrims  breasted  the  stormy 
waves,  subdued  the  wilderness,  struggled  with  blood- 
thirsty savages,  and  built  up  in  rock-ribbed  New  Eng- 
land a  commonwealth  which  remains  the  most  jealous 
and  viligant  watch-tower  of  American  liberties  to  this 
day. 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  39 

It  was  the  liberty  of  the  seas  that  made  a  pathway 
for  our  fathers  to  this  continent,  and  that  liberty  has 
always  been  precious  to  us.  After  our  national  free- 
dom was  achieved,  we  depended  for  a  living  through- 
out a  long  period  on  oceanic  trade  to  a  degree  now 
difficult  to  realise.  The  Napoleonic  wars  interfered 
with  this  trade.  Bonaparte,  notable  for  his  tyranny, 
interfered  with  us  seriously  when  he  attempted  a 
starvation  blockade  of  England,  strikingly  similar  to 
that  which  Germany  undertook  in  this  War.  But 
notice  particularly  that  even  Napoleon,  notoriously 
high-handed  as  he  was,  never  dreamed  of  threatefltfTjf 
with  destruction  American  vessels  entering  the  war 
zone,  although  he  might  easily  have  done  so.  He  lim- 
ited his  interference  with  neutral  rights  to  the  Berlin 
Decree,  forbidding  any  ship  that  had  touched  at  an 
English  port  admittance  to  a  port  of  France  or  her 
allies. 

This  was  bitterly  resented  in  America,  though  not 
so  much  as  the  retaliatory  measure  of  England.  To 
cripple  Napoleon,  England  issued  Orders  in  Council 
requiring  all  American  ships  trading  at  a  European 
port  from  which  British  ships  were  excluded  to  call 
at  British  ports  and  pay  a  duty.  This,  together  with 
interference  with  our  shipping  on  the  high  seas,  caused 
the  War  of  1812,  fought  with  England,  and  won, 
squarely  on  the  issue  which  is  now  raised  again,  in 
an  infinitely  aggravated  manner,  by  Germany. 

So  firmly  did  the  War  of  1812  establish  in  inter- 
national law  this  principle  of  maritime  freedom  that 
the  United  States,  fifty  years  later,  was  forced  to  rec- 


40  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ognise  the  principle  in  England's  behalf  at  the  cost  of 
our  national  pride.  You  remember  the  Trent  affair? 
The  Confederacy  was  sending  two  mischief-makers  to 
England,  Slidell  and  Mason.  England  did  not  want 
them,  but  they  travelled  on  an  English  steamboat,  the 
Trent.  A  zealous  Yankee  skipper,  Captain  Wilkes, 
overtook  and  stopped  the  Trent,  and  removed  these 
dangerous  Confederate  agents.  The  North  went  wild 
with  delight  But  England  immediately  loaded  great 
quantities  of  cannon,  muskets,  and  ammunition  on 
shipboard  for  Canada,  with  thousands  of  soldiers,  and 
sent  an  ultimatum  to  America,  allowing  but  seven  days 
for  reply.  Lincoln  bravely  released  the  prisoners  and 
disavowed  the  act  of  Captain  Wilkes,  declaring  that 
"we  fought  Great  Britain  for  insisting  by  theory  and 
practice  on  the  right  to  do  precisely  what  Captain 
Wilkes  has  done." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  Count  Bernstorff 
of  that  day,  probably  the  father  of  the  late  German 
ambassador  at  Washington,  wrote  from  Berlin :  "Pub- 
lic opinion  in  Europe  has  with  singular  unanimity  pro- 
nounced in  the  most  positive  manner  for  the  injured 
party/'  England. 

More  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  War  of  1812, 
Germany  proposed  to  do  a  thousand-fold  over  the 
iniquity  for  which  we  fought  England  and  for  which 
England  was  willing  later  on  to  fight  us.  Germany 
now  establishes  huge  arbitrary  sea  zones,  which,  if 
respected,  would  blockade  not  only  England,  but  in- 
nocent neutral  nations,  and  deprive  some  of  them  of 
the  means  of  life.  She  also  audaciously  says  that  if 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  41 

our  vessels  so  much  as  enter  those  zones  she  will  de- 
stroy them  just  as  if  they  were  belligerent  warships; 
and  this  after  solemnly  covenanting  with  us  to  respect 
our  vessels  in  war  zones,  on  pain  of  our  positively  de- 
clared intention  to  sever  relations  should  she  not  do 
so.  She  proposes  to  wrest  from  international  law  its 
one  most  precious  immunity,  the  freedom  of  the  paths 
of  the  seas,  and  to  enslave  the  ocean  paths  perma- 
nently, by  this  atrocious  precedent,  to  the  will  of  Mars. 
The  pseudo-Napoleon  of  Germany  out-herods  Herod, 
and  calmly  announces  a  permanent  Lusitania  policy  in 
international  law — making  crime  not  the  exception, 
but  the  rule.  Had  our  Government  refused  to  act  we 
should  have  been  unworthy  to  survive;  as  the  present 
Count  Bernstorff  has  said:  "There  was  nothing  else 
for  the  United  States  to  do." 

Freedom  of  the  paths  of  the  seas  was  necessary  to 
the  settlement  and  establishment  of  this  Nation;  was 
requisite  to  our  national  existence;  is  bound  up  with 
the  woof  of  our  history  to  such  an  extent  that  the  War 
of  the  Revolution  itself  was  not  more  an  American 
war  than  is  this  War. 

How  wonderful,  too,  as  our  President  has  pointed 
out,  that  we  find  ourselves  allied  in  a  clear-cut  strug- 
gle between  democracy  and  absolutism.  When  that 
struggle  is  won,  however,  we  must  not  for  a  moment 
think  that  our  task  is  ended.  To  do  our  great  work  of 
reconstruction  and  rehabilitation  in  the  enormous 
world-labour  that  lies  before  us,  we  shall  be  compelled 
to  wed  the  trained  mind  and  the  skilled  hand  to  the 
ennobled  heart  if  the  fruits  of  our  victory  are  to  be 


42  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

permanent  and  if  civilisation   is  to  triumph  on  the 
earth.  ...  So  far,  my  1917  commencement  address. 

Camp  Throop  collapsed.  Three  of  our  College  sup- 
porters were  putting  $20,000  into  it,  with  the  ardent 
assistance  of  the  Western  Department  of  the  Army, 
whose  headquarters  are  at  San  Francisco.  We 
thought,  moreover,  that  we  had  the  support  of  the 
War  Department  at  Washington.  The  Camp  was  to 
be  subsidiary  and  preparatory  to  that  at  the  Presidio, 
and  we  enlisted  over  a  thousand  young  men  who  could 
not  get  in  up  there,  and  who  were  to  pay  their  own 
living  expenses  at  Camp  Throop  in  order  to  take  pre- 
liminary training  for  the  new  national  army.  ( It 
must  be  remembered  that  this  was  long  before  the 
Draft  Act  was  passed,  or  even  deemed  possible.) 
We  bought  everything  that  money  could  buy,  includ- 
ing tents,  uniforms,  and  a  commissary  outfit  for  fif- 
teen hundred  men,  the  City  of  Pasadena  most  gener- 
ously co-operating  in  putting  in  water,  drainage,  and 
lights.  The  only  equipment  that  money  could  not  buy 
comprised  the  two  items  of  instructors  and  army  rifles, 
although  we  discovered  perfectly  competent  retired 
army  officers  that  were  eager  to  serve  as  instructors, 
and  quantities  of  unused  Krag-Jorgensen  rifles  at 
the  Benicia  arsenal  and  reported  these  to  the  Govern- 
ment with  a  respectful  request  for  their  use.  Sud- 
denly and  summarily,  as  in  the  case  of  similar  college 
enterprises  throughout  the  country,  Washington  abso- 
lutely refused  all  assistance,  for  reasons  that  were 
never  explained. 


AN  AMERICAN  WAR  43 

Camp  Throop  collapsed,  but  the  College  of  course 
adopted  other  plans  for  war  work.  It  was  a  keen 
satisfaction  to  learn  from  a  recent  bulletin  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  that  no  college 
in  the  country  except  the  war  and  navy  colleges  them- 
selves have  exceeded  this  California  school  in  concen- 
trated devotion  to  war  work.1 

But  when  the  summer  vacation  of  1917  came  (we 
had  not  yet  adopted  the  all-the-year  schedule  for  war 
work),  what  was  /  to  do,  without  my  Camp?  Being  a 
bit  past  the  age  limit,  alas!  for  acceptable  service  in 
the  fighting  line,  I  asked  the  same  question  of  myself 
that  many  thousands  such  men  were  anxious  about 
everywhere:  How  can  I  "get  into  the  game"  and  be 
of  some  real  service  in  the  War?  Could  I  not  follow 
my  boy,  and  the  other  young  Throopers,  even  from 
afar,  in  this  greatest  of  all  Crusades?  So  I  did  what 
common  sense  suggested,  and  sent  out  an  "S.  O.  S." 
call  to  a  friend.  He  himself  was  already  in  Wash- 
ington, where  no  man  has  rendered  greater  service. 
He  is  the  sort  of  friend  that  never  fails  when  needed. 
So  it  was  a  glad  day  when  the  telegraph  brought  an 
answer  from  Washington,  offering  service — at  a  dol- 
lar a  year — with  the  Council  of  National  Defense. 
My  board  of  trustees  lent  me  to  the  Government,  and 
I  took  the  next  Santa  Fe  train. 

1  Department  of  the  Interior,  Bureau  of  Education,  Higher 
Education  Circular  No.  6,  Jan.,  1918,  pp.  10-11. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WASHINGTON  AND  THE  COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE 

WASHINGTON  in  the  summer  of  1917— what 
westerner  that  then  came  into  it  can  forget  it?  Gor- 
geous with  its  shining  palaces  set  upon  hills,  its  miles 
upon  miles  of  rolling  avenues  lined  with  pleasant 
homes,  but  with  no  place  for  the  stranger-man  to  lay 
his  head !  Beautiful  and  refreshing  beyond  words  in 
lush  green  foliage  from  many  lands,  but  insufferably, 
humidly  hot !  Feverish  with  aimless  activity,  a  great 
disordered  ant-hill  just  stepped  on  by  the  giant  of 
War — the  most  interesting  and  ineffectual  city  in  the 
world ! 

Hundreds  of  new  people  were  here,  tripping  one 
another  up  with  kind  intentions.  There  was  a  vast 
amount  of  criss-crossing  and  cross-wiring  and  cross- 
firing;  duplication  of  effort,  waste  motion,  even  con- 
flict; not  alone  among  the  bewildered  newcomers,  but 
in  the  overwhelmed  departments  and  bureaus.  Cranks, 
too,  filled  Washington :  cranks  in  Congress,  cranks  in 
the  corridors  of  all  the  hotels  and  of  the  one  stately 
modern  office-building  of  the  town,  the  famous  Mun- 
sey  Building,  now  defiled  by  Brisbane's  Washington 
Times;  every  crank  revolving  industriously  his  own 
panacea  for  the  War,  like  a  hand-organ  jangled  out 

44 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  46 

of  tune.  Secretary  Lane  put  it  with  delightful 
whimsicality  in  his  phrase  depicting  Washington  as  "a 
valley  surrounded  by  a  horse-shoe  of  mountains  into 
which,  by  some  strange  law,  the  miasmatic  vapours  of 
the  country  drop  and  set  up  strange  states  of  mind." 
It  was  not  a  discouraging  place — we  must  banish  that 
word  from  our  vocabulary;  but  depressing  it  cer- 
tainly -was  one  year  ago.  And  it  is  yet,  although  less 
so  as  the  huge  war  machinery  begins  to  bang  and  jostle 
down  into  some  sort  of  chaotic  order.  To  change 
the  figure — here  we  were  in  the  very  vortex  of  demo- 
cratic1 disorder,  in  the  very  storm-centre  of  the  cy- 
clone of  war,  with  no  cyclone  cellar  in  spite  of  two 
years  of  warnings  from  the  international  weather 
bureau ;  and  it  was  refreshing  and  tonic  to  get  out  into 
the  periphery  of  the  States,  and  feel  the  War  as  a 
strong  North  wind,  bracing  the  popular  endeavour. 

There  is  one  recourse  even  in  Washington:  that 
shrine  across  the  river,  that  sacredest  and  placidest 
spot  in  all  the  world,  Mount  Vernon,  where,  as  Owen 
Wister  has  said,  the  calm  spirit  of  the  father  of  our 
country  is  almost  palpable.  I  went  there  again  only 
yesterday;  one  goes  there  when  oppressed  and  hot  at 
heart;  and  always  the  calm  Presence  broods  over  the 
place,  so  that  people  go  about  talking  in  whispers. 
You  feel  his  vast  spaciousness  in  the  broad  greens- 
ward lined  with  stately  trees  that  forms  the  unsur- 
passable approach  to  the  mansion.  You  feel  his  sim- 
ple serenity  in  the  box-bush  and  hollyhock  garden  laid 
out  by  his  own  patient  hands.  At  the  tomb  there  is  a 

'Note  the  small  d,  please. 


46  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

certain  splendor  of  solemnity  nowadays  :  the  great 
bronze  leaf  that  Marshal  Joffre  laid  there  in  the  name 
of  France  surrounded  as  it  is  by  polyglot  tokens  from 
the  thirty  nationalities  that  went  across  the  river  with 
President  Wilson  on  the  last  fourth  of  July  and 
pledged  a  new  meaning  into  our  old  motto,  "E  pluribus 
unum." 

But  it  is  in  the  house  itself  that  the  spirit  of  Wash- 
ington most  intimately  communes  with  you,  as  you  see 
the  desk  at  which  he  wrote,  the  very  clothes  he  wore, 
the  bed  on  which  he  died;  and  the  tiny  room  —  still 
above  that  holy  upper  chamber  —  the  room  from  which 
Martha  Washington  looked  out  toward  his  tomb  in 
the  days  that  remained  to  her  after  his  death.  What 
means  most  to  you,  though,  in  these  times,  is  to 
stand  once  again  in  the  entrance  hall  below,  before  his 
three  swords  hanging  on  the  wall  —  now  unsheathed! 
—  and  read  the  words  which  he  decreed  in  his  will 
should  evermore  accompany  his  swords: 


stoorbg  ate  accompanieb  toitf)  an  injunc* 
tion  not  to  tmsfjcatfje  tfjem  for  tfje  purpose  of  gfteo- 
tring  fcloofc,  except  it  be  (or  self  bef  ens'e,  or  in  bef  entfe 
of  tfieir  countrp  anb  it*  rijjfjte;  anb  in  tfje  latter  case 
to  feeep  tfjem  unstyeatteb,  anb  prefer  falling  toitf) 
fljem  in  tftfir  fjanb*  to  tfje  relinqutefjment  thereof." 

We  have  called  him  first  in  peace;  these  words,  re- 
minding us  that  he  was  also  first  in  war,  speak  to  us 
to-day  from  his  undying  tongue  a  message  that  sends 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  47 

us  away  stilled  and  steeled  with  holy  resolution  to  be 
true  children  of  Washington. 

Coming  events  casting  their  shadows  before,  the 
Council  of  National  Defense  was  established  by  Act 
of  Congress  (in  August,  1916)  to  create  "relations 
which  will  render  possible  in  time  of  need  the  immedi- 
ate concentration  and  utilisation  of  the  resources  of 
the  Nation."  It  is  an  advisory  body,  comprising  in  its 
ultimate  reduction  six  cabinet  officers:  Newton  D. 
Baker,  chairman,  with  the  other  secretaries  supposed 
to  be  specially  concerned  with  the  War — Daniels  of  the 
Navy,  Lane  of  the  Interior,  Houston  of  Agriculture, 
Redfield  of  Commerce,  and  W.  B.  Wilson  of  Labour. 

On  March  i,  1917,  the  Council  and  its  "Advisory 
Commission"  are  said  to  have  settled  down  to  work. 
Walter  S.  Gifford  was  chosen  as  the  (salaried)  Direc- 
tor of  both  bodies,  with  Grosvenor  B.  Clarkson  as  sec- 
retary. When  I  reached  Washington  late  in  June  the 
Advisory  Commission  comprised:  Daniel  Willard, 
chairman,  in  charge  of  transportation  and  communi- 
cation ;  Howard  E.  Coffin,  munitions  and  manuf  actur- 
•ing,  including  standardisation,  and  industrial  rela- 
tions; Julius  Rosenwald,  supplies,  including  food  and 
clothing;  Bernard  M.  Baruch,  raw  materials,  min- 
erals, and  metals;  Dr.  Hollis  Godfrey,  engineering  and 
education;  Samuel  Gompers,  labour,  including  con- 
servation of  health  and  welfare  of  workers;  and  Dr. 
Franklin  Martin,  medicine  and  surgery,  including 
general  sanitation. 

Director  Gifford  is  a  brilliant  and  affable  man,  still 
in  his  thirties,  lent  to  the  Government  by  the  Amer- 


48  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ican  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Company,  of  which  he 
is  chief  statistician.  Two  courses  lay  open  to  him 
at  the  outset:  the  development  of  the  Council  as  a 
powerful  organism,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  use  of  it 
to  incubate  a  brood  of  useful  independent  organisa- 
tions, on  the  other.  The  latter  course  has  prevailed : 
They  must  increase,  although  I  must  decrease,  might 
well  have  been  the  motto  of  the  Council,  thus  far. 
For  example,  there  was  organised  at  the  outset,  as  one 
of  the  fourteen  or  fifteen  committees  of  the  Council 
and  its  Advisory  Commission,  a  Munitions  Standards 
Board,  with  Frank  A.  Scott  as  chairman.  This  was 
done  because  Mr.  Gifford  discovered  "early  in  the 
game"  that  we  should  require  quantity  production  of 
munitions;  for  we  had  no  quantity  production  in  this 
country,  and  we  had  no  designs  and  specifications  to 
enable  us  to  manufacture  our  own  types  of  ammuni- 
tion in  quantity  as  they  had  been  made  up  to  this  time. 
So,  knowing  that  the  Government  arsenals  were  pro- 
ducing output,  not  by  specifications,  but  considerably 
by  "rule  of  thumb/'  the  Munitions  Standards  Board 
was  formed  in  order  to  standardise  our  specifications, 
so  that,  as  required  by  the  exigencies  of  modern  war- 
fare, we  might  go  into  quantity  production  of  muni- 
tions. 

But  this  first  step  rapidly  developed  the  immediate 
need  of  some  system  to  prevent  competition  between 
Army  and  Navy  when  we  actually  began  to  place 
contracts.  Because  of  this  necessity  the  General 
Munitions  Board  evolved  from  its  predecessor,  and 
still  later  this  grew  into  adult  size  and  walked  out 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  49 

alone  under  the  rechristened  name  of  the  present  War 
Industries  Board,  and  under  the  chairmanship  of 
"Barney"  Baruch. 

In  the  same  way,  one  of  the  early  committees  of 
the  Council  and  the  Advisory  Commission  was  the 
Commercial  Economy  Board,  formed  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  Mr.  A.  W.  Shaw,  of  the  System  Magazine,  to 
strip  business  for  action  and  take  care  of  conservation 
and  waste.  Having  been  fostered  by  the  Council, 
however,  it  now  takes  shelter  under  Mr.  Baruch's 
friendly  wing,  and  becomes  the  Conservation  Division 
of  the  War  Industries  Board  just  described. 

There  were  many  sporadic  efforts  on  the  part  of 
women  to  utilise  the  invaluable  woman-power  of  the 
country.  The  Council  succeeded  in  the  co-ordination 
of  these  efforts  under  a  Woman's  Committee  of  the 
Council,  which,  with  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Anna  How- 
ard Shaw,  has  rendered  incalculable  service  in  the 
mobilisation  of  the  national  resources,  but  has  natur- 
ally tended  to  self-determination  and  the  prerogative 
of  standing  alone. 

As  for  labour,  the  experience  of  Europe  had  shown 
that  at  the  outbreak  of  war  labour  standards  are  liable 
to  be  broken  down,  resulting  in  dissatisfaction  on  the 
part  of  labour,  in  the  suspicion  that  wars  are  run  by 
capitalists,  and  that  "profiteers"  are  to  get  the  sole 
gain.  So  Mr.  Gompers,  as  a  member  of  the  Ad- 
visory Commission,  created  committees  of  representa- 
tives of  both  labour  and  capital,  and  very  early  they 
and  the  Council  adopted  resolutions  as  to  labour  stand- 
ards and  the  proper  activities  of  labour,  thus  convinc- 


SO  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ing  the  public,  but  especially  labour  itself,  that  the 
Government  would  not  tolerate  the  breaking  down  of 
standards  built  up  on  behalf  of  workingmen.  The 
Council,  through  the  advice  and  assistance  of  commit- 
tees on  labour,  considered  from  time  to  time  seriously 
the  best  methods  for  handling  the  whole  labour  prob- 
lem, finally  ending  in  the  presentation  of  a  compre- 
hensive labour  plan  to  the  President,  with  the  recom- 
mendation that  it  be  carried  out  through  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labour  itself — which  thus,  by  the  Council's 
•own  act,  takes  over  this  lusty  "offspring." 

Realising  the  difficulties  of  our  Allies  regarding 
food,  the  Council  early  discussed  the  food  problem, 
cabling  for  Mr.  Herbert  Hoover  with  the  idea  of 
-creating  an  organisation  to  advise  as  to  how  food 
matters  should  be  dealt  with.  The  creation  of  the 
Food  Administration  by  Congress  relieved  the  Coun- 
cil of  this  important  function.  Largely  in  the  same 
way  the  Committees  on  Coal  Production  and  on  Trans- 
portation have  been  superseded  by  the  Coal  Admin- 
istration and  the  Railroad  Administration. 

Experience  in  previous  wars  has  shown  that  no 
phase  of  warfare  is  more  vital  than  proper  medical 
attention  and  sanitation,  while  the  present  War 
has  proved  the  necessity  of  safeguarding  the  welfare 
of  civilians.  The  Federal  Government  had  three 
agencies  in  charge  of  these  matters;  nevertheless,  civ- 
ilian medical  talent  had  not  been  mobilised  or  trained 
in  a  manner  that  would  enable  it  to  be  most  effectively 
used.  The  General  Medical  Board  was  formed  to  co- 
ordinate this  work,  and  State  and  County  committees  of 


51 

physicians  are  now  organised  throughout  the  whole  land. 

In  the  judgment  of  the  present  writer  no  organi- 
sation called  out  by  the  War  is  rendering  more  im- 
portant service  now  or  will  prove  of  greater  perma- 
nent value  than  the  National  Research  Council,  of 
which  George  Ellery  Hale  is  president  and  founder. 
While  still  maintaining  a  nominal  connection  with  the 
Council  of  National  Defense,  it  has  recently  received 
uie  sanction  of  an  Executive  Order,  and  is  rapidly 
evolving  an  organisation  not  merely  of  national  but 
of  great  international  import. 

Finally:  the  problem  of  utilising  local  energies  on 
a  large  scale  was  early  suggested  to  the  Council  by 
offers  of  help  from  many  States,  cities,  towns,  com- 
munities, and  clubs;  for  in  those  early  days  the  Coun- 
cil was  the  only  reservoir  for  these  valuable  offers  of 
aid.  All  of  this  miscellaneous  activity  was  ultimately 
organised  by  the  Council  under  forty-eight  State 
Councils  of  Defense,  which  in  turn  formed  County 
Councils,  and  are  now  reaching  out  to  assemble  "Com- 
munity Councils"  in  school-houses,  with  the  school  dis- 
trict as  the  ultimate  unit  of  the  national  organisation 
for  war  work.  Representing  the  States  rather  than 
Washington,  and  occupying  a  building  of  its  own, 
there  has  grown  up  a  State  Councils  Section,1  of 
which  I  have  been  the  Chief  Field  Agent.  To  tell  of 
my  experience  in  this  position  is  the  chief  object  of  the 
following  pages.2 

1  Formerly  called  the  "Section  on  Co-operation  with  States." 
"  In  the  preparation  of  the  foregoing  account  of  the  Council 
I  have  had  the  invaluable  aid  of  Director  W.  S.  Gifford. 


52  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

An  excellent  summary  of  what  the  State  Councils 
have  accomplished  is  contained  in  the  following  letter 
from  Secretary  Baker,  chairman  of  the  Council  of 
National  Defense,  to  President  Wilson : 

COUNCIL  OF   NATIONAL  DEFENSE 
WASHINGTON 

July  24,  1918. 
My  dear  Mr.  President : 

As  Chairman  of  the  Council  of  National  Defense,  I 
beg  to  report  to  you  the  noteworthy  accomplishments 
of  the  State  Councils  of  Defense  in  the  forty-eight 
states  of  the  Union,  and  to  indicate  the  war  activities 
for  which  they  seem  to  me  to  be  peculiarly  fitted  and 
peculiarly  responsible,  and  to  ask  your  advice  and 
assistance  in  a  matter  vital  to  their  future  effective- 
ness. 

The  State  Councils  of  Defense,  as  you  are  well 
aware,  were  instituted  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Council 
of  National  Defense  shortly  after  we  entered  the  war. 
Almost  from  the  day  of  their  organisation  they  took 
a  prominent  part  in  recruiting  our  armed  forces. 
Since  the  early  months  of  the  great  struggle  they  have 
rendered  particularly  valuable  service  on  behalf  of 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  in  increasing  the  pro- 
duction of  foodstuffs.  Before  the  creation  of  the 
United  States  Food  Administration  they  led  the  na- 
tional campaign  for  food  conservation.  Most  of  them 
took  a  leading  part  in  the  institution  of  Home  Guards 
to  take  the  place  of  the  federalised  militia.  They  met 
many  another  state  emergency  by  prompt  local  action. 
As  time  went  on,  in  the  natural  course  of  events  many 
of  the  fields  of  action  which  they  had  occupied  were 
officially  taken  over  by  especially  created  Federal  Ad- 
ministrations. But  new  problems  constantly  arose 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  53 

and  the  work  of  the  State  Councils,  instead  of  dimin- 
ishing, has  notably  increased  in  scope  and  in  signifi- 
cance. 

To  accomplish  this  work  they  have  built  up  an 
organisation  uniquely  suited  to  its  purpose.  Every 
State  Council  of  Defense  has  active  County,  or  equiva- 
lent, Councils  of  Defense  under  it,  while  in  nearly 
every  state  the  organisation  of  Community  Councils 
in  the  school  districts,  bringing  the  Government  to  the 
people  and  the  people  to  the  Government,  is  progres- 
sing rapidly. 

Through  their  speakers,  their  war  conferences,  their 
contact  with  the  press  and  their  contact  with  the  peo- 
ple themselves  through  their  Community  Councils,  the 
State  Councils  are  now  in  a  special  sense  the  guar- 
dians of  civilian  morale  in  each  state;  carrying  on  a 
work  of  education  and  information  which  we  look 
to  see  continued  and  strengthened,  in  order  that  the 
will  to  win  and  the  knowledge  of  how  to  make  that 
will  effective  may  be  everybody's  possession  through- 
out the  war,  in  the  dark  hours  of  trial  as  well  as  in 
the  hour  of  victory. 

In  states  with  a  considerable  population  of  for- 
eign origin,  the  State  Councils  of  Defense  are  leaders 
in  the  work  of  Americanisation,  establishing  war  in- 
formation bureaus,  correlating  existing  Americanisa- 
tion agencies,  increasing  as  far  as  possible  the  educa- 
tional facilities  available  to  the  foreign-born,  and  see- 
ing that  such  facilities  are  used. 

The  State  Councils  are  engaged  in  preparing  the 
young  men  of  the  country  for  the  high  duty  of  selec- 
tive service,  advising  and  informing  them  in  particular 
upon  the  adjustment  of  their  legal  affairs  and  upon 
military  conditions  and  requirements  and  social 
hygiene. 

They  are  bringing  their  great  influence  to  bear  on 


54  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

behalf  of  economy  and  thrift  throughout  the  country. 
It  is  also  their  special  task,  in  the  interest  of  economy, 
to  supervise  the  solicitation  of  funds  for  war  relief 
by  voluntary  agencies,  and  to  co-ordinate  the  efforts  of 
these  agencies,  seeing  that  they  work  harmoniously 
and  to  a  common  purpose,  and  determining  what 
agencies  shall  be  approved  and  what  discouraged. 

They  act  also  as  the  state  representatives  of  the 
Highways  Transport  Committee  of  the  Council  of 
National  Defense  in  the  increasingly  important  work 
of  extending  and  facilitating  motor-truck  transporta- 
tion, in  order  to  reduce  the  tremendous  burden  on  our 
railroads  and  to  stimulate  the  production  of  food  by 
providing  means  of  transporting  it  to  market 

In  addition,  they  are  doing  notable  work  in  con- 
nection with  public  health;  in  connection  with  voca- 
tional education ;  and  in  studying  and  assisting  in  the 
solution  of  the  difficult  housing  and  rent-profiteering 
problems  which  the  war  has  brought  to  many  a 
locality. 

Last,  but  far  from  least,  their  ramifying  organisa- 
tion enables  them  to  play  a  valuable  part  in  the  prac- 
tical execution  of  the  policies  of  the  Department  of 
Agriculture,  the  Food  Administration,  the  Fuel  Ad- 
ministration, the  Labour  Department,  the  Shipping 
Board,  and  the  other  Federal  agencies  which  are  ex- 
tended into  the  states.  We  expect  the  state  represen- 
tatives of  these  Federal  agencies  to  feel  in  the  future, 
as  they  have  been  able  to  feel  in  the  past,  that  the 
organisation  of  the  State  Council  of  Defense  is  their 
ready  right-hand.  Most  of  the  State  Councils  are 
incidentally  performing  the  special  service  of  bring- 
ing these  Federal  representatives  together  for  fre- 
quent and  regular  consultation,  and  in  most  of  the 
states  these  Federal  representatives  are  actually  mem- 
bers of  the  Councils  of  Defense. 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  55 

These,  in  general  terms,  are  the  broad  lines  upon 
which  the  State  Councils  are  now  acting,  and  I  have 
said  nothing  of  the  local  industrial  and  social  emer- 
gencies which  it  is  their  special  province  to  meet  by 
local  action. 

The  existence  of  this  great  national  system,  valu- 
able for  each  and  every  Government  department, 
makes,  of  course,  for  economy  of  effort  and  renders 
unnecessary  the  creation  of  much  local  Federal  ma- 
chinery which  would  otherwise  have  to  be  set  up  for 
the  performance  of  specific  tasks. 

May  I  suggest,  then,  that  you  ask  all  Federal 
Departments,  Administrations,  and  Commissions, 
when  planning  new  work  or  extension  of  their  organi- 
sations, to  consider  carefully  the  possibility  of  using 
the  State-Council  system  so  as  to  prevent  duplication  ? 
A  better  understanding  on  this  point  throughout 
Washington,  would,  I  think,  make  for  the  general 
efficiency  of  the  war  machine. 

Furthermore,  will  you  not  remind  the  heads  of  all 
Federal  Departments,  Administrations  and  Commis- 
sions, that  all  requests  and  suggestions  for  work  on 
the  part  of  the  State  Councils  should  be  submitted 
through  the  State  Councils  Section  of  the  Council  of 
National  Defense?  This  Section  has  attained  a 
strong  position  as  the  agency  to  which  the  State  Coun- 
cils look  for  authority  and  guidance  in  the  pro- 
grammes committed  to  them  for  execution.  It  is 
clear  that  in  the  interest  of  efficiency,  all  requests  for 
action  from  the  Federal  Government  should  go  to 
them  through  this  single  channel.  In  the  past  Fed- 
eral authorities  have,  not  infrequently,  caused  confu- 
sion by  going  directly  to  the  State  Councils  with 
recommendations — sometimes  with  conflicting  recom- 
mendations. I  believe  a  word  from  you  would  pre- 
vent such  misunderstandings  in  the  future. 


56  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  importance  of  the 
service  rendered,  since  our  entrance  into  the  war,  by 
these  State  Councils,  their  County  Councils  and  the 
multitude  of  workers  banded  together  under  them, 
whom  we  estimate  to  number  at  least  one  million.  I 
feel  sure  that  you,  as  their  Commander-in-Chief,  will 
be  proud  of  their  unique  contribution  in  the  war  and 
will  use  your  authority  to  broaden  the  scope  of  their 
activities  as  conditions  permit,  so  that  they  may  go 
on  to  still  greater  achievements. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

NEWTON  D.  BAKER, 

Secretary  of  War  and 
Chairman  of  Council 
of  National  Defense. 

To  this  letter  the  President  replied  as  follows: 

THE  WHITE  HOUSE 
WASHINGTON 

July  30,  1918. 
My  dear  Mr.  Baker: 

I  have  read  with  great  interest  your  account  of  the 
achievements  of  the  State  Councils  of  Defense  and 
your  general  summary  of  the  activities  in  which  they 
are  now  engaged.  It  is  a  notable  record,  and  I  shall 
be  glad  to  have  you  express  to  the  State  Councils  my 
appreciation  of  the  service  they  have  so  usefully  ren- 
dered. I  am  particularly  struck  by  the  value  of  ex- 
tending our  defense  organisation  into  the  smallest 
communities  and  by  the  truly  democratic  character  of 
a  national  system  so  organised. 

I  believe  in  the  soundness  of  your  contention  that  in 
the  interest  of  economy  and  efficiency  such  machinery 
as  that  provided  by  the  State  Council  system  for  the 


COUNCIL  OF  DEFENSE  57 

execution  of  many  kinds  of  war  work  should  be 
utilised  as  far  as  possible  by  Federal  Departments  and 
Administrations.  May  I  suggest,  therefore,  that  you 
communicate  to  the  heads  of  all  such  departments  and 
administrations  my  wish  that  when  they  are  consider- 
ing extensions  of  their  organisation  into  the  States  or 
new  work  to  be  done  in  the  States,  they  determine 
carefully  whether  they  cannot  utilise  the  State  Council 
system,  thus  rendering  unnecessary  the  creation  of 
new  machinery;  and  that  they  transmit  all  requests 
for  action  by  the  State  Councils  through  the  State 
Councils  Section  of  the  Council  of  National  Defense? 
Cordially  and  sincerely  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
Hon.  N.  D.  Baker, 
Secretary  of  War. 


CHAPTER  V 
"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS 

THE  OATH  I  swore  on  joining  the  Council  of 
National  Defense  gave  me  profound  relief.  Like 
many  thousands  of  other  Americans,  I  had  been  chok- 
ing with  unsworn  oaths  ever  since  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania;  now  I  could  not  only  swear  without  being 
profane,  but — to  be  very  serious — I  could  solemnly 
pledge  my  fealty  as  a  servant  of  the  Republic  in  the 
time  of  our  gravest  need.  Here  is  the  oath;  there 
will  be  occasion  to  refer  to  it  later  i1 

"I,  James  A.  B.  Scherer,  do  solemnly  swear  that  I 
will  support  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  against  all  enemies,  foreign  and  domestic;  that 
I  will  bear  true  faith  and  allegiance  to  the  same;  that 
I  take  this  obligation  freely,  without  any  mental  reser- 
vation or  purpose  of  evasion;  that  I  will  well  and 
faithfully  discharge  the  duties  of  the  office  on  which 
I  am  about  to  enter,  and  that  I  will  not  disclose  any 
information  contained  in  the  schedules,  lists,  or  state- 
ments obtained  for  or  prepared  by  the  Council  of 
National  Defense,  to  any  person  or  persons,  except 
those  designated  by  the  Director :  so  help  me  God." 

My  first  job  in  Washington,  after  reading  all  the 
Council   "literature" — minutes,   bulletins,   and   corre- 
1  See  Appendix  A. 

58 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       59 

spondence — accumulated  during  the  three  or  four 
months  of  its  actual  operations,  was  appointment  as 
"liaison  officer"  with  the  Food  Administration.  In  the 
attempt  to  reduce  somewhat  the  duplication  and  even 
conflict  of  effort  resulting  from  the  "planlessness"  of 
things,  these  "liaison  officers"  have  been  appointed  by 
various  bodies,  especially  by  the  Council  of  Defense. 
Acting,  as  it  does,  as  an  intermediary  between  the 
Capital  and  the  States,  it  serves  as  a  clearing-house — 
in  so  far  as  permitted  to  do  so — for  all  the  federal 
agencies  as  these  reach  out  to  State  Councils.  Con- 
sequently our  State  Councils  Section  has  its  liaison  of- 
ficers (although  they  are  not  officially  called  that)  for 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments,  the  Departments  of 
Labour  and  Agriculture,  the  Food  and  Fuel  Adminis- 
trations, the  Committee  on  Public  Information,  and  so 
on  all  along  the  line. 

Although  unsuccessful  in  the  first  task  assigned  to 
me — the  attempt  to  get  the  Food  Administration  to 
abandon  "Hooveralls  for  women,"  as  its  proposed 
universal  uniform  was  humourously  called — I  derived 
from  this  brief  experience  a  personal  knowledge  of 
Mr.  Hoover  that  will  always  remain  an  inspiration. 

The  State  Councils  of  Defense  being  still  in  process 
of  organisation,  and  sending  in  emergency  calls  now 
and  then  for  "first  aid,"  it  was  decided  to  let  me  try 
my  hand  as  a  sort  of  trouble  doctor.  From  this  be- 
ginning my  position  developed  rapidly  into  that  of 
Chief  Field  Agent  for  the  Section,  and  I  became  an 
incessant  traveller. 

The  State  Councils  of  Defense  are  organisations  in 


60  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

behalf  of  public  safety.  In  some  States,  indeed,  such 
as  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania,  they  are  known  as 
"Committees  of  Public  Safety":  safety  from  mili- 
tary attack,  safety  from  spies  and  the  otherwise  sedi- 
tious, safety  from  the  harmful  acts  of  well-intentioned 
but  ignorant  or  irresponsible  persons,  frbm  the  waste 
caused  by  carelessness  or  idleness,  from  disease,  hun- 
ger, unhealthful  surroundings,  and  from  immorality 
and  crime.1 

These  apparently  negative  functions  become  active 
the  moment  they  are  organised;  the  prevention  of  food 
waste,  for  example,  becomes  conservation,  and  this 
immediately  suggests  the  stimulation  of  production. 
The  earliest  acts  of  the  Councils  had  to  do,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  with  food  conservation  and  production,  so 
that  Mr.  Hoover,  when  Congress  at  length  unham- 
pered him,  found  fields  fallowed  to  his  hand. 

South  Carolina,  the  first  State  visited  for  the  Na- 
tional Council,  is  a  good  illustration  of  this.  The 
State  Council,  organised  under  the  chairmanship  of 
David  R.  Coker,  inevitably  emphasised  improvement 
in  agricultural  methods,  since  Mr.  Coker  himself  con- 
ducts what  is  probably  the  best  privately  owned  experi- 
mental farm  in  the  country.  The  "war  interest"  and 
the  war  organisations  enable  Mr.  Coker  and  men  like 
him  to  get  a  hearing  they  never  have  had  before. 
Anybody  that  knows  the  South  remembers  how  long 
and  how  vainly  agricultural  educationalists  have  en- 
deavoured to  induce  Southern  planters  to  abandon  the 

1  Woman's  Committee  News,  Delaware  State  Council  of  De- 
fense, June,  1918. 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       61 

economic  fallacy  of  putting  all  their  land  into  cotton, 
"the  money  crop/'1  and  sending  out  West  for  "hog 
and  hominy,"  their  foodstuffs  as  well  as  their  feed- 
stuffs,  instead  of  producing  these  at  home. 

Since  the  War  began  in  Europe  these  philanthro- 
pists have  at  last  got  a  hearing ;  the  war  interest  creates 
a  psychological  opportunity  for  "forcing  home"  truths 
that  otherwise  have  pattered  on  deaf  ears.  You  there- 
fore find  that  Southern  States,  such  as  Alabama,  are 
for  the  first  time  since  long  before  the  Civil  War  now 
feeding  themselves;  not  buying  a  pound  of  hominy 
or  a  can  of  lard  from  the  West;  and  then  putting 
their  surplus  lands  into  cotton.  The  South  is  better 
off  than  it  was  before  materially,  and  it  is  better  off 
spiritually,  because  it  has  learned  a  new  self-reliance 
and  a  new  self-respect.  It  will  never  go  back  to  the 
old  plan.  It  is  being  made  over  by  the  War. 

I  was  born  in  a  little  old  State  that  has  not  thought 
very  much  of  itself,  because  its  neighbours  used  up  all 
the  conceit  there  was.  I  was  born  in  North  Carolina, 
that  valley  of  humility  between  those  twin  peaks  of 
pride,  Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  It  did  me  a  lot 
of  good  to  get  down  into  the  "Old  North  State"  and 
see  how  these  tar-heels  are  sharpening  their  wits  in 
Uncle  Sam's  service.  Take  the  matter  of  "publicity;" 
and  this  much  abused  word  has  great  import  in  these 
days  when  the  proper  information  of  our  people  has 
been  perhaps  the  greatest  problem  that  perplexed  us. 
In  North  Carolina  they  believe  that  even  doctors  have 
their  uses,  so  they  have  organised  the  physicians  of 

*See  "Cotton  as  a  World  Power,"  Scherer,  ch.  68. 


62  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  State  into  a  patriotic  league,  and  nowadays  when 
a  doctor  goes  into  a  tar-heel  home  to  relieve  a  patient 
who  is  shaking  with  fever  and  ague,  he  not  only  gives 
him  quinine,  but  while  he  has  him  "down"  he  injects 
into  him  the  spiritual  hypodermic  of  a  more  intelligent 
patriotism,  so  that  if  the  doctor  has  luck  the  man  not 
only  gets  up  well,  he  gets  up  better — a  better  patriot 
than  when  he  went  to  bed. 

They  have  also  quaintly  organised  the  women  down 
there;  they  have  what  might  be  called  a  company  of 
three-minute  women,  on  the  principle,  I  suppose,  that 
women  can  say  more  in  three  minutes  than  the  Four- 
Minute  Men  can  in  four  (and  say  it  much  more  to  the 
purpose).  They  have  put  these  three-minute  women 
at  the  telephones;  it  is  easy  enough  to  get  the  co- 
operation of  the  telephone  companies.  So  every  day 
at  noon  when  the  North  Carolina  farmer  puts  his  ear 
to  the  telephone  he  not  only  gets  the  latest  market 
quotations  on  "butter'n'eggs,"  and  corn  and  cotton 
and  hay,  but  "central"  drops  into  his  ear  at  the  same 
time  just  a  little  dose  of  the  proper  patriotic  "dope" 
that  Uncle  Sam  thinks  he  needs  at  the  moment. 

I  was  glad  to  go  down  into  Dixie,  because,  born 
and  bred  in  the  South,  I  wanted  to  see  for  myself  just 
how  far  the  German  Emperor's  nefarious  programme 
had  succeeded  in  stirring  up  the  black  man  against 
the  white.  Senator  Overman  said  the  other  day  that 
there  are  400,000  German  spies  in  this  country ;  surely 
enough  to  go  'round.  Well,  when  I  first  went  South 
for  the  Government  I  wished  for  the  loan  of  a  spy, 
that  he  might  with  me  "spy  out  the  land,"  hear  what 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       63 

I  have  heard,  see  what  I  have  seen,  and  then  report 
to  his  Kaiser  truthfully  (if  he  could)  his  observations 
in  the  form  of  a  letter. 

In  Atlanta  I  would  introduce  him  to  a  burly  black 
soldier,  immeasurably  proud  of  his  khaki,  who 
chucked  himself  in  the  chest  when  I  was  in  Georgia 
last  summer  and  exclaimed : 

"Ah  don'  wondah  dat  dem  Chutones  hab  had  eb'ry 
t'ing  their  own  way  so  fah;  who's  dey  had  to  fight 
ag'inst?  Nobuddy  but  jes'  ha'f-strainers — English- 
muns  an'  Irishmuns  an'  Frenchmuns.  But  you  all  jus' 
wait  till  us  Angry-Saxons  gits  over  thah  and  gits 
aftah  'em;  we'll  sho*  show  'em  whut's  whut!" 

I  told  that  story  at  a  great  War  congress  of  black/ 
people  and  white  people  in  Birmingham,  Alabama. 
The  Negroes  jumped  to  their  feet  and  shouted  almost 
as  one  man,  "Sho'  we'll  show  'em!"  The  other 
speaker  that  night  was  Major  Moton,  the  distin- 
guished Negro  who  succeeded  Booker  Washington  as 
President  of  Tuskegee  Institute.  He  said  that  during 
the  brief  period  of  this  War  and  by  reason  of  it  more 
has  been  accomplished  in  the  improvement  of  rela- 
tions between  the  blacks  and  whites  in  the  South  than 
during  his  entire  life-time  previously.  German  spies 
please  note  carefully! 

A  year  ago  Washington  was  much  concerned  about 
the  danger  of  an  acute  labour  shortage  in  the  South. 
The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  and  other  big  corpora- 
tions had  sent  agents  down  there  to  induce  a  Negro 
exodus,  to  make  good  the  labour  shortage  caused  by 
-the  draft  in  the  North ;  and  the  Negroes  were  leaving 


64.  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

pell-mell.  Not  only  the  Council  of  National  Defense 
but  the  Departments  of  Agriculture  and  Labour  asked 
me  to  look  into  this  matter  for  them.  While  I  was 
in  Mississippi  the  problem  gave  promise  of  beginning 
to  settle  itself.  At  Jackson  an  officer  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  gave  me  a  letter  he  had  just  received 
from  a  Negro  that  had  gone  "up  North;"  it  was  so 
delicious  that  I  copy  it  verbatim: 

"To  my  kind  loving  white  friends  whom  I  worked 
for  over  eight  years,  I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude 
to  you  all  for  all  my  loving  kindness  towards  me  since , 
I  first  knew  you.  You  have  been  so  good  to  me  I  can 
never  forget  it,  and  it  gives  me  a  great  deal  of  pleas- 
ure to  sit  down  here  and  tell  you  how  I  appreciate  all 
your  good  deeds,  and  to  ask  you  to  be  more  gooder. 

"Facts  is,  I  am  worried  and  stirred  up  in  my  hart  up 
here.  I  am  not  comforted  here  at  all,  and  I  want  you 
to  all  forgive  me  and  forget  me  for  leaving,  and  to 
plead  with  you  for  my  job  back.  I  know  it  is  all  my 
foolish  mistakes.  Please  grant  me  with  enough  money 
to  come  home  on  and  take  it  out  of  my  wages.  I 
started  to  work  to-day  at  $2  a  day,  but  if  it  was  $10 
a  day  I  want  to  come  back  to  work  for  you  and  die 
with  you,  and  my  family.  There  ain't  no  place  like 
the  South.  I  could  do  a  lot  of  good  preaching  to  my 
race  the  great  deanger  that  is  in  the  north,  because 
they  don't  know  what  it  is.  If  you  don't  send  me  the 
money  to  come  I  will  just  hafter  stay  till  I  get  enough 
myself,  but  please  send  it  at  once.  I  am  working  in  a 
bag  and  sack  factory  trucking  1,000  pounds  of  baled 
•sacking  and  I  am  awful  weak  from  it.  I  don't  weight 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       65 

but  127  pounds  and  you  know  I  can't  last  long.  I 
want  to  come  right  now  and  please  don't  take  this  for 
jokes.  I  never  tells  jokes  nor  lies  no  more.  God 
knows  this  is  the  truth.  Please  deliver  me  from  up 
here  as  quick  as  you  can." 

They  sent  him  the  money  and  delivered  him  from 
up  there  as  quick  as  they  could.  While  I  was  in 
Mississippi,  two  big  steamboats  came  chug-chug-chug- 
ging down  Mark  Twain's  Mississippi  river  loaded  to 
the  "gunnels"  with  a  thousand  Negroes  coming  "back 
home"  with  a  homing  instinct  almost  as  strong  as  that 
of  the  carrier  pigeon  itself.  Beneath  all  superficial 
disturbances  there  is  a  strong  bond  between  the  South- 
ern white  man  and  the  Negro.  This  War  has  greatly 
strengthened  that  bond  and  I  predict  that  in  conse- 
quence of  such  State  Council  movements  as  that  of 
the  "Sumter  County  plan"  in  South  Carolina,  the  race 
problem  is  going  to  be  far  less  acute  in  the  South  in 
the  future  than  it  has  been  in  the  immediate  past. 

That  is  what  interests  me  chiefly  about  these  State 
Councils.  Important  as  they  are  for  the  winning  of 
the  War,  they  will  have  a  far-reaching  influence,  if 
their  activities  continue  to  be  properly  directed.  I  am 
not  an  apologist  for  war;  far  from  it.  But,  out  of 
the  terrible  evil  of  this  War,  it  takes  no  prophet's 
eye  to  see  good  coming  to  America.  Can  we  not  al- 
ready discover  the  awakening  of  a  new  national  con- 
sciousness? President  Wilson  himself  said,  in  New 
York  City,  that  the  Nation  has  been  more  closely  knit 
together  by  one  year  of  war  than  would  have  been 


66  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

possible  in  a  hundred  years  of  peace.1  One  can  see, 
also,  an  opportunity  for  the  economic  regeneration  of 
the  Nation.  If  we  teach  our  people  for  the  period  of 
this  War  (and  for  my  part  I  detect  no  early  jprospect 
of  its  conclusion)  methods  of  thrift  and  economy  and 
efficiency,  these  methods  will  tend  to  become  habits; 
and  we  can  have  a  saner,  healthier  and  more  efficient 
America  when  the  boys  come  marching  home  from 
their  Great  Crusade. 

The  distinctive  contribution  of  South  Carolina  to 
National  Defense  plans  is,  in  my  judgment,  "the  Sum- 
ter  County  plan,"  for  co-operation  with  Negroes  in 
war  work.  It  may  best  be  described  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  E.  I.  Reardon,  Secretary  of  the  Sumter  County 
Council  of  Defense: 

"We  first  interested  R.  W.  Westberry,  an  intelli- 
gent leader  of  the  coloured  race,"  writes  Mr.  Reardon, 
"in  our  plans  for  organising  the  white  people.  We 
had  Westberry  attend  our  first  County  Council  of  De- 
fense meeting,  and  all  subsequent  meetings.  We  en- 
gaged his  services  for  thirty  days,  paying  him  $5.00  a 
day  or  about  three  cents  per  mile  expense  of  his  auto- 
mobile, he  really  charging  nothing  but  his  actual 
expenses.  We  had  him  to  call  about  twenty  mass 
meetings  of  coloured  men,  women,  boys,  and  girls, 
at  coloured  rural  schools,  coloured  city  schools, 
churches,  and  other  public  places.  We  had  two  or 

iwln  my  own  mind  I  am  convinced  that  not  a  hundred  years 
of  peace  could  have  knitted  this  nation  together  as  this  single 
year  of  war  has  knitted  it  together ;  and  better  even  than  that,  if 
possible,  it  is  knitting  the  world  together." — From  the  President's 
Red  Cross  speech  in  New  York  City,  May  18,  1918,  as  reported 
bf  the  Washington  Post  of  the  following  day. 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       67 

more  leading  business  men, — bankers,  lawyers,  and 
merchants, — from  among  the  whites  to  meet  with 
these  coloured  people  at  every  township  meeting  and 
address  them;  together  with  coloured  ministers  of 
these  townships  and  other  influential  coloured  citizens. 

"We  distributed  thousands  of  packages  of  seed, 
such  as  several  kinds  of  beans,  peas,  corn,  and  other 
garden  seed,  and  millet  seed.  We  distributed  50,000 
cabbage  and  25,000  sweet-potato  plants,  besides 
35,000  papers  of  United  States  packages  of  five  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  garden  seed,  each  package  containing 
instructions  how  to  use.  We  organised  coloured 
women's  auxiliary  committees,  with  Westberry  as 
leader,  in  cities,  towns  and  rural  districts. 

"We  have  kept  up  these  township  meetings  at  in- 
tervals, including  a  whirlwind  campaign  among  the 
coloured  population  of  ten  townships,  Westberry  and 
coloured  ministers  talking  at  every  meeting.  We  in- 
terested coloured  teachers  also  and  we  have  the 
coloured  pupils  taught  all  about  the  War  and  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  War;  the  importance  of  food 
production  and  conservation,  the  fact  that  'Food  will 
win  the  War.'  We  organised  or  induced  coloured 
people  over  the  county  to  organise  Red  Cross  chap- 
ters and  to  subscribe  to  the  Red  Cross,  to  buy  Liberty 
Loan  Bonds,  and  to  educate  coloured  people  that  this 
is  as  much  their  War  as  the  white  man's  War. 

"Executive  committees  (coloured)  were  formed  in 
nearly  every  township.  We  had  the  members  of  the 
white  township  committees  visit  every  coloured  fam- 
ily and  preach  the  doctrine  of  extraordinary  food  pro- 
duction and  conservation  and  the  reasons  therefor. 

"We  had  hundreds  of  white  land-owners  to  help 
their  coloured  tenants  and  'share  croppers'  to  plant 
plenty  of  corn,  wheat,  oats,  vegetables,  sweet  and 
Irish  potatoes,  rice,  tobacco,  velvet  beans,  soy  beans, 


68  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

peanuts,  field  peas,  and  to  raise  chickens,  hogs,  and  in 
many  instances  to  buy  dairy  cows. 

"We  let  the  coloured  people  know  that  we  were 
working  with  and  for  them.  We  helped  them  every 
way  we  could  and  are  still  doing  it.  We  had  several 
big  county  meetings  in  Sumter,  the  county  seat,  ad- 
dressed by  congressmen,  U.  S.  Government  agricul- 
tural and  live-stock  and  grain  experts,  and  we  had  the 
coloured  people  to  attend  these  meetings  with  white 
people. 

"We  got  the  Negroes  to  doing  just  what  we  were 
and  are  still  doing.  There  is  more  prosperity  in 
Sumter  County  this  fall  than  ever  before  in  the  coun- 
ty's history.  Thousands  of  coloured  farmers  have 
paid  clean  out  of  debt, — paid  old  debts  from  tobacco 
money  received,  and  have  their  fall  cotton  money 
clear.  We  have  fought  to  induce  thousands  of  them 
to  deposit  their  money  and  to  buy  Liberty  Bonds  with 
their  surplus  cash.  Hundreds  will  do  this.  Others 
will  of  course  buy  automobiles  and  other  useless  com- 
modities. But  by  getting  into  close  elbow-touch  with 
the  coloured  men  and  women  and  helping  them  we 
have  made  this  one  of  the  most  prosperous  counties  in 
the  South.  Where  twelve  months  ago  poverty  pre- 
vailed and  actual  want  was  in  evidence,  nearly  every 
coloured  family  in  the  county  has  plenty  of  chickens, 
eggs,  sweet  potatoes,  and  hogs  to  do  them  for  a  year, 
and  we  have  induced  thousands  of  coloured  families 
to  can  and  preserve  thousands  of  cans  of  vegetables 
and  berries  and  fruits. 

"We  placed  great  stress  upon  the  teaching  of  col- 
oured women  and  girls  how  to  preserve  and  can.  We 
employed  an  expert  (coloured)  'home  demonstrator' 
and  opened  a  school  in  Sumter  which  thousands  at- 
tended long  enough  to  learn  how  to  preserve  food. 

"Our  coloured  people  are  loyal,  patriotic,  and  as 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       69 

proud  of  the  United  States  as  the  white  people  are. 
They  know  now  that  the  Sumter  County  white  people 
are  their  best  friends.  They  work  with  us  in  all 
matters  for  public  welfare.  They  listen  to  the  advice 
of  the  white  men  and  to  their  coloured  leaders.  We 
have  coloured  ministers  meet  with  us  occasionally  at 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  other  places,  where  we 
discuss  the  War  and  its  economic  problems  heart  to 
heart,  as  fellow  citizens. 

"We  are  delighted  with  the  results  obtained  from 
the  coloured  people's  efforts.  We  are  keeping  it  up 
and  will  continue  to  do  so.  All  the  coloured  man 
needs  is  intelligent  leadership  from  among  his  white 
fellow-citizens  and  intelligent  co-operation.  By  hav- 
ing the  loyal  and  intelligent  coloured  leaders  in  close 
touch  with  white  leaders,  and  giving  the  coloured 
leaders  support, — financial  and  moral  support, — we 
easily  line  up  the  rest  of  the  coloured  population  for 
their  good  and  our  good.  But  we  had  to  go  to  them 
and  have  them  come  to  us,  and  work  with  them  and 
they  with  the  white  people.  No  social  restrictions 
were  broken  down.  We  worked  on  purely  business 
principles  and  they  understood  this." 

Two  years  ago  I  quoted  with  reluctantly  pessimistic 
approval  the  clever  comparison  of  the  race  problem 
with  a  fog:  "the  Southern  people  are  inside  this  fog, 
and  cannot  see  out,  while  the  Northerners,  outside  of 
it,  cannot  see  in."1  My  knowledge,  acquired  during 
the  past  year,  of  changed  conditions  such  as  Mr.  Rear- 
don's  remarkable  letter  describes,  now  leads  me  to 
believe  that  the  storm  of  the  War  is  blowing  the  race 
fog  aside,  for  the  moment  at  least.  White  men  and 

1  "Cotton  as  a  World  Power,  a  Study  in  the  Economic  Inter- 
pretation of  History,"  Scherer,  p.  323. 


70  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

black  men  in  the  South,  warmed  by  the  common  cause 
of  humanity,  thrilled  with  the  knowledge  that  their 
two  races  are  clad  in  common  khaki  on  the  fields  of 
France,  fighting  in  the  Great  Crusade, — white  men 
and  black  men  in  the  South  now  see  eye  to  eye,  be- 
cause their  kinsmen  are  fighting  shoulder  to  shoulder 
"over  there." 

North  Carolina  leads  the  whole  country  in  canning 
campaigns,  Mrs.  Jane  McKinnon's  achievements  be- 
ing nothing  short  of  marvellous.  Between  1910  and 
1916  this  remarkable  "director  of  Home  Economics" 
brought  the  number  of  cans  up  from  10,000  to 
400,000,  and  under  the  War  impetus  this  number  was 
increased  in  1917  to  over  7,000,000! 

North  Carolina  was  also  the  first  State  to  organise 
a  "Business  Aid  and  Legal  Advisory  Committee"  for 
the  soldiers.  A  soldier  cannot  do  his  best  in  camp,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  battlefield,  if  he  knows  that  a  mort- 
gage hangs  over  his  home,  or  is  uneasy  abouts  debts 
that  he  could  in  the  natural  course  of  events  have  re- 
paid had  he  not  been  snatched  into  war.  It  is  simple 
enough,  if  only  you  have  an  organisation  of  authority, 
to  get  competent  lawyers  to  volunteer  their  services 
for  advice  and  business  aid  to  such  soldiers.  This 
praiseworthy  movement  has  now  spread  to  practically 
all  the  States,  with  its  scope  so  enlarged  in  several 
States  as  to  provide  employment  for  soldiers  on  their 
return  and  to  undertake  the  re-education  of  the 
maimed  or  disabled. 

When  we  were  selecting  the  title  for  this  book,  my 
publisher  suggested  that  it  bear  a  double  meaning: 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       71 

"the  Nation  at  war"  against  a  foreign  foe,  and  "the 
Nation  at  war,"  with  equal  determination  and  inten- 
sity, against  those  foes  of  our  own  household  who 
have  threatened  its  integrity  from  within.  This  sug- 
gestion cleverly  formulated  my  own  latent  intention, 
an  intention  derived  from  experience.  Our  people 
have  been  long-suffering  beyond  any  people  in  his- 
tory; but  they  are  now  resolved  not  only  to  break  the 
tyranny  of  Prussia,  they  are  equally  determined  to  dis- 
solve insidious  sedition  at  home.  I  found  in  the  Caro- 
linas,  alas!  certain  Americans  with  German  names 
whose  names  meant  more  to  them  than  their  birth- 
right— those  "creatures  of  passion,  disloyalty,  and 
anarchy,  not  many,  but  infinitely  malignant,"  as  the 
President  once  said,  who,  even  in  the  so-called  re- 
ligious press  (God  save  the  mark!)  flouted  American 
institutions  and  subtly  incited  to  disloyalty. 

I  found,  too,  a  growing  bitterness  against  them  on 
the  part  of  those  truly  constituting  the  Nation.  Ways 
and  means  were  considered  for  counteracting  their 
influence  and  assisting  the  Department  of  Justice  to 
punish  them.  In  some  cases  the  Department  sue- 
ceeded;  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
at  least  two  of  the  gentry  who  "boiled  me  in  oil"  are 
now  stewing  in  a  juice  of  their  own  brewing  behind 
prison  bars.  But  the  most  effective  service  has  been 
rendered  against  "German-Americans,"  in  the  Caro- 
linas,  as  elsewhere,  by  Americans  of  German  descent 
— a  distinction  with  a  very  great  difference.  And  of 
these  no  man  has  done  more  than  Dr.  George  B. 


72  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Cromer,  of  Newberry,  by  such  utterances  as  that 
printed  in  the  "South  Carolina  Handbook  of  the 
War" : 

"We  might  have  kept  out  of  the  War,"  said  Dr. 
Cromer, 

"By  admitting  that  Germany  has  the  right  selfishly 
to  treat  her  solemn  contracts  with  other  nations  as 
'scraps  of  paper.' 

"By  admitting  that  Germany  had  the  right,  with 
mailed  fist  and  iron  heel,  ruthlessly  to  crush  and  de- 
stroy Belgium,  a  weak  nation  whose  neutrality  she 
was  under  sacred  obligation  to  protect. 

"By  admitting  that  Germany,  while  enjoying  our 
hospitality  and  professing  to  be  our  friend,  had  the 
right  to  maintain  an  army  of  spies  and  carry  on  a 
campaign  of  lawlessness  in  our  own  country. 

"By  admitting  that  Germany,  while  professing  to  be 
our  friend,  had  the  right  to  embroil  us  with  Mexico 
and  Japan  in  an  effort  to  destroy  the  integrity  of  our 
country. 

"By  admitting  that  Germany,  while  professing  to 
be  our  friend,  had  the  right,  with  ruthless  and  devil- 
ish disregard  of  law  and  humanity,  to  destroy  our 
ships  and  murder  our  citizens,  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, travelling  on  peaceful  missions  and  within  their 
perfect  legal  rights. 

"By  admitting  that  might  is  right ;  that  there  is  no 
law  of  nations  above  the  will  and  power  of  the  Im- 
perial German  Government;  that  our  flag  is  no  longer 
an  emblem  of  sovereignty  and  national  honour;  that 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       73 

we  have  a  spineless  and  nerveless  Government  or  a 
nation  of  slackers  and  cowards;  and  that  our  Con- 
stitution and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  are 
'scraps  of  paper.' 

"Being  unwilling  to  admit  these  things,  we  are  in 
the  War.  We  will  come  out  of  the  War  by  the  gate 
of  Victory — victory  that  will  vindicate  the  rights  and 
freedom  of  our  own  people,  and  victory  for  justice, 
liberty,  and  humanity.  But  we  must  overcome  an 
army  at  home  as  well  as  vast  armies  in  Europe.  In 
our  own  country  are  spies,  so-called  pacifists,  traitors, 
and  demagogues,  who  are  diligently  sowing  the  seeds 
of  sedition  and  treason  by  criticising  the  methods  and 
policies  of  our  Government  and  by  creating  division 
and  dissatisfaction  among  our  own  people.  They  are 
trying  to  shackle  the  Government,  and,  in  effect,  they 
are  attacking  our  army  in  flank  and  rear.  Our  army 
is  entitled  to  the  undivided  support  of  a  united  coun- 
try. To  this  end  and  to  the  utmost  limit  of  its  Con- 
stitutional authority,  the  Government  should  put  down 
the  sinister  Pro-German  influences  that  are  at  work  in 
our  country.  There  is  no  middle  ground.  Our  citi- 
zens who  are  not  Pro-American  are  Pro-German. 
Those  who  are  not  for  us  are  against  us." 

Of  course  one  cannot  write  of  the  Carolinas  with- 
out saying  something  about  the  two  Governors. 
Julian  Street  admonishes  me,  however,  very  solemnly. 
He  says  that  when  he  was  in  Raleigh  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  Governor  had  a  look  both  worn  and  appre- 


74  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

hensive,  and  that,  while  they  talked,  the  Governor 
was  waiting  for  something.  He  doesn't  know  how  he 
gathered  that  impression,  but  it  came  to  him  definitely. 
After  leaving  the  executive  chamber  he  asked  the  gen- 
tleman who  had  taken  him  there  whether  the  Governor 
was  ill. 

"No,"  he  replied.  "All  our  Governors  look  like 
that  after  they  have  been  in  office  for  a  while." 

"From  overwork?"  asked  Mr.  Street. 

"Yes,  from  an  overworked  jest — the  jest  about 
'what  the  Governor  of  North  Carolina  said  to  the 
Governor  of  South  Carolina.'  Every  one  who  meets 
the  Governor  thinks  of  that  joke  and  believes  con- 
fidently that  no  one  has  ever  before  thought  of  his 
application  of  it.  So  they  all  pull  it  on  him.  For 
the  first  few  months  our  Governors  stand  it  pretty 
well,  but  after  that  the)  begin  to  break  down.  They 
feel  they  ought  to  smile,  but  they  can't.  They  begin  to 
dread  meeting  strangers,  and  to  show  it  in  their  bear- 
ing. When  in  private  life  our  Governor  had  a  very 
pleasant  expression,  but  like  all  the  others,  he  has  ac- 
quired, in  office,  the  expression  of  an  iron  dog."1 

I  myself  am  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Street's 
friend  was  mistaken,  and  that  Governor  Bickett's  iron 
jaw  is  due  not  to  an  overworked  joke,  but  to  his  de- 
termination to  help  win  the  War.  Certainly  he  is  one 
of  the  wisest  War  governors  in  the  country,  and  close 
in  his  touch  with  the  common  people.  But  when  I 
•was  in  Raleigh  he  was  bothered.  A  letter  from  an 

1  "American  Adventures,"  Street,  pp.  276-277. 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  CAROLINAS       75 

equally   determined   war-worker    had   just  been   re- 
ceived, beginning  as  follows : 

"My  dear  Governor: 

"Have  I  as  a  private  citizen  the  legal  right  to  shoot 
a  man  who  utters  slanders  and  seditious  threats  about 
the  President  and  the  Government?" 

Then,  after  a  description  of  highly  provocative  lan- 
guage on  the  part  of  one  of  his  neighbours,  this  rough- 
diamond  patriot  proceeds  with  much  earnestness  to  his 
conclusion : 

"Please  let  me  know  whether  or  not  I  have  the  right 
as  I  asked  at  the  beginning  of  this  letter  to  shoot  any 
one  I  hear  abusing  and  making  threats  against  the 
President  and  our  Government.  If  your  reply  is  in 
the  affirmative,  I  will  proceed  at  once  to  a  good  hard- 
ware store  and  buy  myself  the  biggest  six-shooter  I 
can  find." 

Governor  Manning  of  South  Carolina  bears  the 
proud  distinction  of  the  starriest  service  flag  to  which 
any  Governor  is  entitled.  Six  of  his  seven  sons  are 
in  the  service,  and  so  this  glorious  Southern  Governor 
(successor  of  Blease!)  leads  the  Palmetto  State  in  a 
martial  devotion  worthy  of  Marion  and  Sumter  and 
Hampton.1 

1  In  a  letter  to  the  author  (Aug.  8,  1918)  Governor  Manning 
writes :  "Yes,  I  have  six  sons  in  the  service,  and  one  sixteen 
years  old.  My  regret  is  that  he  is  too  young  and  I  am  too  old !" 


CHAPTER  VI 
"DOWN  SOUTH":  THE  FARTHER  DIXIE 

CITIES  have  always  had  for  me  infinite  charm. 
Somewhere — I  think  in  the  judicial  deliverances  of 
those  amiable  young  Solons  who  conduct  The  New 
Republic — I  have  read  contempt  of  that  "affectation" 
that  pretends  to  find  individuality  and  even  person- 
ality in  cities.  In  that  case  I  must  accept  the  con- 
tempt of  the  court;  for  a  new  city  always  rushes  out 
and  gets  me  at  grips  until  by  wrestling  with  it  I 
know  it  and  it  becomes  to  me  almost  a  soul. 

Some  cities  tease  me  a  long  time.  New  Orleans 
challenged  me  mightily  when  as  a  boy  I  first  saw  it. 
Going  there  many  times  afterward,  I  never  seemed 
to  get  fully  acquainted  with  it  until  after  we  entered 
this  War. 

Even  so  I  cannot  analyse  its  charm  or  depict  its 
rare  personality ;  for  that  you  must  go  to  the  pages  of 
Lafcadio  Hearn  or  Grace  King  or  George  W.  Cable. 
Julian  Street  is  too  crude  by  far — reminding  you  of 
one  of  those  men  who  amuse  you  by  saying  they  know 
all  about  women! 

Feminine  New  Orleans  is;  to  that  extent  Julian 
Street  is  right.  "She  is  a  full-blown,  black-eyed, 
dreamy,  drawly  creature,"  he  says,  "opulent  of  figure, 

76 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  FARTHER  DIXIE       77 

white  of  skin,  and  red  of  lip.  Like  San  Francisco 
she  has  Latin  blood  which  makes  her  love  and  preserve 
the  carnival  spirit;  but  she  is  more  voluptuous  than 
San  Francisco,  for  not  only  is  she  touched  with  the 
languor  and  the  fire  of  her  climate,  but  she  is  without 
the  virile  blood  of  the  forty-niner,  or  the  invigourat- 
ing  contact  of  the  fresh  Pacific  wind.  In  my  imagin- 
ary picture  I  see  her  yawning  at  eleven  in  the  morning 
when  her  Negro  maid  brings  black  coffee  to  her  bed- 
side— such  wonderful  black  coffee! — whereas,  at  that 
hour,  I  conceive  San  Francisco  as  having  long  been 
up  and  about  her  affairs.  Even  in  the  afternoon  I 
fancy  my  New  Orleans  beauty  as  a  bit  relaxed.  But 
at  dinner  she  becomes  alive,  and  by  midnight  she  is 
like  a  flame." 1 

Very  well  written,  Mr.  Street,  but  not  subtle ;  your 
portrait  is  too  vivid,  and  stares  at  you  out  of  its  frame, 
whereas  the  Creole  City  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  all-elu- 
sive. Certainly  San  Francisco  is  always  suggested 
when  one  thinks  of  New  Orleans,  if  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  that  the  two  termini  are  the  great  outstand- 
ing attractions  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railway. 
But  these  two  far-sundered  cities  are  to  me  associated 
also  in  this :  they  possess  the  strongest  and  most  chal- 
lenging individuality  of  all  our  American  cities,  bar 
none.  Not  the  greatest  charm — there  is  Charleston; 
not  the  greatest  beauty, — here  is  Washington,  to  say 
nothing  of  Pasadena  the  incomparable;  but  what  I 
have  written  I  have  written. 

New  Orleans,  like  no  other  city  in  the  world, 

1  "American  Adventures,"   Street,  p.  622. 


78  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

whips  up  the  froth  of  my  fancy.  Last  winter  when 
I  visited  it  for  the  Council  time  and  again,  it  gripped 
me  as  never  before.  I  remember  one  late  afternoon, 
when  riding  back  alone  into  town  from  the  Country 
Club,  how  "sub-conscious  cerebration"  startled  me 
from  incipient  reverie  with  the  chaotic  phrase,  "a 
quaint  magnificent  tumult  of  splendour  and  squalor," 
which  at  once  I  set  down  in  my  note-book  to  keep  the 
words  as  a  clue.  Two  hours  later,  and  more,  New 
Orleans  gripped  me  again ;  the  quaintness  and  sombre- 
ness  and,  above  all,  the  poignancy  of  its  always  tragic 
beauty  came  on  me  as  I  sat  on  the  rear  platform  of 
the  Washington  train,  in  that  gloomy  old  "L.  &  N." 
station,  separated  from  the  thronged  street  that 
crosses  the  railway  tracks  behind  the  train  only  by 
a  thin  double  gate  of  latticed  steel.  This  street  was 
thronged  with  a  scurrying  New  Orleans  crowd :  black- 
amoors, as  one  should  call  the  Negroes  in  this  roman- 
tic atmosphere;  turbaned  Laskars  from  some  tramp 
steamer  in  the  harbour;  our  own  "jackies"  in  their 
silly  caps  and  bell-shaped  trousers;  Creoles  from  "the 
Quarter,"  shamefaced  smiling  lovers,  children  chat- 
tering over  their  sticky  "lagniappe,"  slouching  tramps. 
I  remember  wondering  whether  the  gates  would  be 
stronger  than  pasteboard  if  the  train  took  a  notion  to 
back ;  and  then  wandering  off  into  one  of  those  eldritch 
musings  that  grip  the  mind  once  in  a  long  while  like 
some  visualised  poem  by  Coleridge  with  a  touch  of 
De  Quincey  at  his  elbow.  Then  I  wondered  about  the 
power  of  this  city  to  work  black  magic  framed  in 
silver  musings.  I  felt  foolish ;  New  Orleans  had  "got 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  FARTHER  DIXIE       79 

on  my  nerves";  so  I  roused  myself,  and  said  to  the 
"commercial  man"  seated  at  my  side: 

"Isn't  this  a  strange  old  town?" 

"Yes,"  said  he;  "haven't  sold  a  dam'  dollar's  worth 
to-day !" 

This  jarred  me,  but  not  wide-awake.  Deeper  still 
I  sank  again  into  witchery,  charmed  by  the  scene: 
looking  out  from  this  Plato's  cave  of  a  station  at  the 
rainbow-coloured  crowd,  silhouetted  under  the  lights; 
passing,  passing  always  under  the  fitfully  dim  arc 
lights;  until,  bemused  by  the  spell  of  the  sad  mad  old 
city  (not  "the  city  care  forgot,"  as  Creoles  claim) — < 
until,  like  the  toll  of  some  sunken  bell,  the  words: 
"Impending  doom,  Impending  doom,  Impending 
doom,"  intoned  themselves  to  my  fancy  and  began  to 
ring  through  my  head  like  some  tune  one  would  like 
to  forget.  Then,  suddenly — bang!  We  were  shot 
backward  through  the  gates  like  a  catapult!  Train 
men  shouted,  passengers  screamed,  the  frightened  peo- 
ple scurried  from  the  tracks,  and  I  could  swear  that 
we  shaved  the  varnish  from  the  tail  of  a  bob-tailed 
trolley-car,  jammed  with  people,  that  bumped  and  hob- 
bled out  of  our  way  just  in  time.  There  was  an  open 
switch,  sheer  inside  the  station  yard  itself;  and  the 
onrushing  incoming  train  from  New  York  had  plunged 
into  our  locomotive  with  such  speed  that  before  our 
borrowed  momentum  was  spent  the  rear  Pullman  was 
cuddled  alongside  a  sugar  factory,  whence  the  acrid 
smell  of  over-abundant  sweetness  added  the  last  touch 
of  strangeness  to  this  intagliated  mental  adventure. 

I  write  it  as  it  happened.    On  reflection,  however,  I 


80  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

wonder  how  much  of  my  reverie  was  due  to  the  "mint- 
smash"  served  on  the  lawn  at  the  Club,  and  the  "toast" 
half  of  the  "cinnamon-toast"?  For  Creoles  concoct 
quaint  comestibles. 

At  Galatoire's,  The  Louisiane,  or  Antoine's,  one 
gets  the  best  meal  in  the  world ;  better  even  than  any- 
where in  France.  "Meal,"  however,  is  a  coarse  mis- 
nomer for  it ;  New  Orleans  administers  food  as  a  sac- 
rament, so  that  to  say  grace  comes  natural.  Results 
are  not  always  salubrious,  but  it  is  worth  a  pinch  of 
indigestion,  to  say  nothing  of  the  tip,  to  be  nursed  and 
coddled  and  escorted  through  a  meal  by  that  precious 
old  animated  netsuke,  Frangois,  with  his  wonderful 
smile.  He  used  to  "attend"  at  the  Louisiane,  until 
they  descended  to  vulgar  American  dishes;  Antoine's 
is  of  unsullied  splendour,  like  dear  old  Frangois.  Al- 
ways, in  going  to  New  Orleans,  I  try  to  save  up 
enough  money  for  one  visit  to  Antoine's,  and  after 
that  I  go  to  Galatoire's. 

Mayor  Buehrmann,  however  (another  American 
of  German  descent),  served  a  War  lunch  at  the  New 
Orleans  War  Conference  that  combined  delicacy  and 
deliciousness,  parsimony  and  patriotism,  simplicity 
and  elegance,  to  a  degree  that  can  never  be  surpassed. 
It  was  Hooverised  throughout;  with  a  meatless  piece 
de  resistance,  the  biscuits  wheatless,  syrups  supplant- 
ing the  sugar  pot,  and  "fats:  just  enough" — but  dainty 
enough  for  Diana,  substantial  enough  for  a  German, 
and  costing  just  twenty-five  cents !  The  French  thing 
I  mentioned  a  moment  ago  was  Gumbo-aux-herbes, 
containing  hidden  fat  shrimps;  the  crisp  biscuits  were 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  FARTHER  DIXIE      81 

made  of  the  finest  potato-flour;  and,  best  of  all,  the 
lunch  was  made  up  and  served  by  a  cooking-class  of 
girls,  schooled  at  the  city's  expense  in  conservation 
as  they  qualify  in  Home  Economics. 

Louisiana  busied  herself  with  food-preparation  for 
the  War  long  before  the  Council  was  organised.  A 
"food  preparedness  commission,"  directed  by  Harry 
D.  Wilson  and  Professor  W.  R.  Dodson,  spread  to  all 
the  parishes  of  the  State  the  new  farm  gospel  of  which 
John  M.  Parker  has  been  the  bright  particular  evangel. 
Ten  years  ago  it  was  believed  throughout  the  country 
that  Louisiana,  famous  for  her  rice  and  sugar  crops, 
could  never  raise  corn  or  hogs ;  that  she  must  forever 
buy  "hog  and  hominy"  from  the  West.  Mr.  Parker, 
believing  otherwise,  formed  corn  clubs  among  the 
boys  throughout  the  State.  There  are  now  thret  mil- 
lion boys  in  the  corn  clubs,  and  Louisiana  grows  fifty 
million  bushels  of  corn.  The  pig  clubs  are  only  five 
years  old,  but  boys  now  have  blooded  swine  in  every 
parish,  whereas  the  only  porcine  product  of  Louisiana 
in  former  years  was  the  "razor  back,"  whose  peculiar 
efficiency  was  supposed  to  reside  in  the  fact  that  he 
could  "outrun  a  nigger."  - 

A  few  years  ago  the  Federal  Department  of  Agri- 
culture said  that  wheat  could  never  be  grown  in  Louisi- 
ana except  "as  of  necessity  an  uncertain  crop."  Mr. 
Parker  now  has  a  wheat  farm  averaging  30^  bushels 
to  the  acre,  while  Mr.  Clarence  Ellerbe  gets  on  his 
plantation  an  average  of  forty-three  bushels,  as  against 
the  old  average  for  the  country  at  large  of  fourteen! 
Boys'  wheat  clubs  are  now  being  organised,  supported 


82  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

by  the  Council  of  Defense,  and  there  is  a  lusty  Boys' 
Baby-Beef  Club  two  years  old.  Registered  bulls  are 
coming  into  Louisiana  from  all  of  the  great  beef  and 
milk  producing  States,  and  the  livestock  industry 
promises  to  become  one  of  the  most  prosperous.  I 
heard  Mr.  Parker  tell  the  Farmers'  Union  at  their 
great  meeting  in  New  Orleans  that  they  had  no  busi- 
ness bragging  about  a  "four-gallon  cow";  that  up 
in  Michigan  he  had  recently  seen  sixty-odd  cows 
averaging  seven  gallons  apiece,  and  that  if  they  would 
visit  him  out  at  St.  Francisville  he  would  show  them 
samples  of  the  same  milk-producing  kine  on  his  own 
farm. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  preliminary  meeting  of  the 
Louisiana  Council  of  Defense,  in  the  old  St.  Charles 
Hotel  in  New  Orleans.  Governor  Pleasant,  young 
and  intelligently  patriotic,  presided.  Before  him,  an 
honoured  member  of  the  Council,  sat  John  M.  Parker, 
whom  he  had  just  defeated.  Two  former  Governors, 
Blanchard  and  Hall,  were  also  there;  every  political 
faction  forgotten  in  devotion  to  the  one  great  cause. 
Besides,  every  interest  in  the  State  was  notably  well 
represented.  The  largest  lumber  dealer  in  the  world 
and  the  largest  rice  producer — a  Polish  immigrant  who 
began  as  a  peddler  and  who  now  grows  two-and-a-half 
million  bushels  annually — are  examples;  and  organ- 
ised labour  was  there.  It  was  a  magnificent  body  of 
men;  touched  not  only  with  lingering  French  grace 
and  dignity,  but  quietly  impassioned  also  with  love 
for  the  gallant  tri-colour  as  well  as  for  the  star-span- 
gled banner. 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  FARTHER  DIXIE       83 

The  organisation  meeting  at  Baton  Rouge,  a  fort- 
night later,  was  no  less  impressive.  Miss  Hilda  Phelps 
(now  Mrs.  Hammond)  was  there — deserving  infinite 
credit  for  the  superb  women's- work  of  the  State. 
It  was  in  connection  with  the  question  of  the  registra- 
tion of  women  that  the  most  interesting  discussion 
arose,  revolving  around  the  somewhat  heated  point  of 
the  registration  of  coloured  women  as  well  as  white. 
Had  this  question  been  settled  off-hand  affirmatively,, 
it  would  not  warrant  special  attention.  Its  signifi- 
cance lies  in  the  fact  that  it  was  settled  affirmatively 
after  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  subject  in  all  of  its 
phases.  Some  of  the  most  thrilling  and  touching  ad- 
dresses to  which  I  have  listened  in  a  long  time  were 
made  by  white-haired  Southern  gentlemen  of  the  old 
school,  pleading  with  the  Council  to  give  proper  rec- 
ognition to  the  "humble  but  earnest"  efforts  of  the 
Negroes  to  show  their  patriotism  during  the  War.  A 
new  era  is  coming  to  pass  in  the  South.  The  sting 
of  Reconstruction  has  been  healed  by  the  passage  of 
time,  and  it  is  most  heartening  to  see  concrete  and 
positive  evidences  of  the  generous  attitude  of  former 
slave-owning  families  toward  their  coloured  fellow- 
citizens;  not  in  the  mere  relationship  of  employer  to 
employee,  but  in  far  more  important  relationships, 
where  the  principle,  Noblesse  oblige,  appears  to  con- 
trol. 

Mississippi  I  visited  three  times,  addressing  the  leg- 
islature once  and  also  addressing  the  State  War  Con- 
ference in  the  spacious  legislative  chamber,  both 
houses  attending.  It  was  on  this  latter  occasion  that 


64  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

I  derived  as  great  satisfaction  as  I  have  ever  had  in 
public  speaking  anywhere.  Feeling  that  I  could  not 
conscientiously  speak  and  ignore  Vardaman,  whose 
disloyalty  was  just  then  notorious,  and  yet  desirous 
to  observe  the  proprieties,  I  said  (quoting  from  mem- 
ory) : 

"I  am  going  to  be  frank  and  tell  you  that  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  I  hear  Mississippi's  loyalty  ques- 
tioned. Understand,  I  do  not  question  it,  but  here 
and  there  I  do  find  it  called  into  question.  Why?  Is 
it  because  you  allow  yourselves  to  be  misrepresented? 
Do  you  tolerate  in  any  public  forum  anywhere  any 
official  spokesman  who  damages  the  good  name  of 
your  whole  State  by  flouting  the  War?  Of  course," 
I  added,  "I  do  not  allude  to  that  great  and  gifted 
Senator,  John  Sharp  Williams." 

That  was  enough.  Pandemonium  broke  loose,  as 
a  young  reporter  might  say.  I  had  not  expected  an 
outburst  of  approval;  I  had  only  sought,  by  some  sort 
of  oblique  denunciation,  to  clear  my  own  conscience 
without  violating  the  political  proprieties.  When  the 
prolonged  tumult  of  applause  had  died  down  I  said: 

"If  that  be  politics,  then  make  the  most  of  it." 
(Vardaman  was  up  for  re-election.)  "Remember,"  I 
went  on,  "that,  after  all,  you  are  responsible  for  your 
misrepresentatives.  Remember  that  you  have  it  with- 
in your  power,  if  there  is  any  'political  prima-donna' 
from  Mississippi  who  is  singing  off-key,  either  to  make 
him  change  his  tune  or  else  stop  singing  altogether !" 

Then  the  tumult  broke  out  again,  and  it  lasted  even 
longer  than  before.  The  "red-necks"  were  there,  too, 


"DOWN  SOUTH":  FARTHER  DIXIE       85 

as  Vardaman's  backwoods  supporters  are  humorously 
called.  It  was  to  me  a  keen  satisfaction  to  go  into 
this  demagogue's  stronghold  and  find  the  people  ready 
to  welcome  denunciation  of  his  stand  on  the  War.  The 
Nation  indeed  is  at  war  against  those  who  assail  from 
within,  as  well  as  without,  the  cause  for  which  it  is 
fighting. 

In  Alabama,  the  boll-weevil  missionary  has  aided 
the  agricultural  educators  in  securing  diversification 
of  crops.  For  the  boll-weevil  has  "played  hob"  with 
Alabama  cotton.  Montgomery,  formerly  the  "ban- 
ner county"  of  the  State,  used  to  produce  45,000  bales 
annually;  last  year  it  produced  only  7,800  bales.  But 
the  people  rejoice  in  the  fact  that  Alabama  is  now 
feeding  herself ;  and,  in  so  far  as  the  boll-weevil  con- 
tributed to  this  result,  he  is  nothing  less  than  a  bless- 
ing in  disguise.  The  Alabama  Council  of  Defense, 
although  late  in  "getting  down  to  business,"  is  now 
giving  a  good  account  of  itself. 

I  visited  Georgia  oftener  than  any  other  State — 
seven  times;  and  secured  less  net  results  than  in  any. 
The  last  time  I  was  there,  at  the  dismal  "War  Con- 
ference" in  Atlanta,  the  Governor  introduced  me  as 
"the  father  of  the  Georgia  State  Council  of  Defense." 
I  fear  I  was  not  wholly  gracious  in  replying  that  I 
was  not  very  proud  of  my  offspring,  but  I  certainly 
was  truthful.  The  women,  under  Mrs.  Sam  Inman, 
have  done  excellent  work  from  the  beginning,  but  the 
men  in  Georgia  who  seem  to  be  most  outspoken  and 
influential  about  the  War  are  such  blatherskites  as 
Senator  Hardwick  and  Tom  Watson.  Georgia  has 


86  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

been  a  State  of  great  men.  In  the  more  recent  years 
of  her  history  one  has  only  to  recall  Ben  H.  Hill, 
John  B.  Gordon,  Henry  W.  Grady.  What  is  the  mat- 
ter with  Georgia  to-day  ?  I  confess  I  don't  know.  The 
same  rare  hospitality  is  there,  as  of  old ;  nowhere  was 
I  more  royally  entertained;  but  hospitality  will  not 
win  the  War.1 

1  The  attention  of  the  Georgia  Council  of  Defense  is  respect- 
fully directed  to  the  general  observations  on  page  112. 


CHAPTER  VII 
"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND 

NEW  ENGLAND  I  visited  for  the  Council  of 
National  Defense  several  times  during  the  winter  of 
1917,  in  connection  with  the  War  Emergency  Em- 
ployment Service.  The  Council  co-operated  with  the 
Department  of  Labour  in  endeavouring  to  extend  to 
all  the  States  effective  systems  of  labour  exchange  such 
as  those  established  by  the  independent  initiative  of 
Ohio  and  Pennsylvania.  While  the  shipyard  emer- 
gency provided  the  acute  occasion  for  this  undertak- 
ing, the  plans  were  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  take 
care  of  all  needful  war  work.  New  England  was 
chosen  to  begin  in,  both  because  of  the  large  number 
of  shipyards  and  munition  plants  within  its  territory, 
and  also  because  its  compactness  afforded  a  good 
opportunity  to  "try  out"  a  zone  system  of  labour 
exchanges. 

Everybody  is  familiar  with  the  ordinary  labour  ex- 
change, operated  privately  for  profit.  That  for  house- 
hold servants  is  the  most  common,  but  the  large  cities 
have  many  for  supplying  industrial  plants,  although 
these  latter  now  commonly  operate  their  own  ex- 
changes. Some  of  the  most  progressive  States  have 

87 


S8  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

made  labour  exchanges  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  the 
commonwealth. 

The  chief  cause  of  labour  shortages  is  not  an  ab- 
solute deficiency  of  labour,  but  lack  of  facility  in  dis- 
tributing it  from  points  of  over-supply  to  the  seats 
of  acute  need.  By  the  establishment  of  zone  ex- 
changes, Vermont,  for  example,  can  lend  large  bodies 
of  workers  to  relieve  Massachusetts  in  some  indus- 
trial emergency,  and  Massachusetts  will  also  be  ready 
to  help  Vermont  harvest  her  crops. 

The  chief  weakness  of  the  ordinary  labour  exchange 
has  arisen  from  failure  to  examine  and  classify  mate- 
rial. For  example,  Fore  River  calls  for  several  hun- 
dred anglesmiths.  An  unassorted  body  of  men,  un- 
der the  old  humpty-dumpty  arrangement,  would  be 
dumped  into  Fore  River,  whose  managers  and  fore- 
men, after  costly  waste  in  time  and  experiment,  would 
be  likely  to  find  that  only  a  few  of  the  applicants  could 
be  used.  This  rejection  in  turn  reacts  unfavourably 
on  the  workingman,  who  finds  himself  out  of  a  job 
at  the  end  of  tedious  days  of  waiting.  There  are  nu- 
merous cases  in  which  a  turnover  of  several  thousand 
workingmen  has  been  necessary  to  secure  a  few  hun- 
dred fitted  to  their  jobs. 

It  is  perfectly  feasible  for  the  labour  exchange 
itself  so  to  examine  and  classify  its  human  material 
as  to  send  to  the  seat  of  demand  only  labourers  well 
qualified  for  the  undertaking  in  hand. 

It  is  also  feasible  for  "industrial  Plattsburgs,"  such 
as  the  famous  shipbuilding  school  at  Newport  News, 
Virginia,  to  convert  relatively  unskilled  labour  in  a 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  89 

very  short  time  into  skilled  workmen  earning  good 
wages.  Thus  an  ordinary  house-carpenter,  trained  in- 
tensively for  a  brief  period  in  beveling,  becomes  a 
ship-carpenter;  or  a  blacksmith,  trained  to  swing  both 
arms  instead  of  one,  becomes  an  anglesmith.  There 
are  at  least  eighty-eight  ordinary  and  relatively  un- 
remunerative  vocations  from  which  men  can  be  speed- 
ily transformed  into  shipbuilders. 

Connecticut  was  the  first  State  I  visited  in  New 
England,  arriving  at  Hartford  in  time  to  attend  a 
most  interesting  meeting  of  manufacturers  assembled 
to  hear  Sir  Stephenson  Kent  (November  7,  1917). 
To  listen  to  this  great  Englishman  describe  the  results 
obtained  in  Great  Britain  by  the  application  of  gov- 
ernmental firmness,  fairness,  and  foresight  to  labour 
problems  occasioned  by  the  War,  was  to  realise  witlj 
dismay  what  a  chasm  divides  the  labour  policies  of 
our  overseas  cousins  from  the  chaotic  conditions  that 
have  existed  here.  I  remember  Sir  Stephenson' s  say- 
ing that  if  England  had  had  one-eighth  of  the  labour 
troubles  from  which  the  United  States  has  suffered, 
she  would  have  had  to  conclude  a  disgraceful  peace 
with  Prussia  long  ago. 

Public  opinion,  according  to  this  great  leader,  is 
the  giant  compulsive  force  that  in  England  brings  the 
would-be  strikers  back  to  work.  Trades  unions,  he 
furthermore  declared,  had  been  of  the  greatest  pos- 
sible assistance  to  the  Government  in  overcoming  in- 
dustrial resistance  to  the  War. 

I  was  particularly  struck  with  the  figures  given 
by  Sir  Stephenson  Kent  to  show  the  participation  of 


90  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Englishwomen  in  practical  and  indeed  essential  war 
work.  Women  in  munitions  industries  alone  had  in- 
creased since  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  seven  hun- 
dred per  cent,  and  men  fifty  per  cent.  When  a  woman 
or  unskilled  worker  supplants  a  regular  worker  in 
England,  discontent  is  allayed  by  promoting  the  lat- 
ter to  a  better  position  immediately.  The  laws  are 
so  organised  and  administered,  moreover,  as  to  pro- 
tect working  people  against  high  costs  of  living.  A 
British  farmer  who  had  recently  sold  potatoes  at  too 
high  a  price  had  been  promptly  fined  $25,000! 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  War  a  law  was  passed 
in  England  declaring  strikes  illegal  and  punishing 
with  life  imprisonment  any  one  who  incited  to  a 
strike.  "By  itself,"  says  Mr.  Burton  J.  Hendrick1 
in  describing  English  labour  conditions,  "such  a  dras- 
tic law  would  have  made  a  desperate  situation  even 
more  desperate.  But  this  same  law  gave  the  Minister 
of  Munitions  (there  is  as  yet  no  such  officer  in  Amer- 
ica) power  to  control  munition  factories — to  operate 
them  if  necessary — and  limited  the  profits  of  manu- 
facturers to  one-fifth  more  than  the  average  of  the 
two  years  preceding  the  war.  The  unions  agreed,  on 
their  part,  to  accept  the  wages  existing  at  the  time  of 
the  agreement  with  a  proviso  to  increase  them,  if  nec- 
essary, three  times  a  year,  in  accordance  with  the  in- 
creased cost  of  living.  These  increases  are  paid,  not 
by  the  manufacturers,  but  by  the  national  exchequer. 
In  consideration  of  these  conditions,  the  unions  aban- 
doned, for  the  duration  of  the  war,  all  the  union  re- 
1  In  Collier's  Weekly. 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  91 

strictions — limitation  of  output  and  apprentices,  em- 
ployment of  women,  etc. — the  understanding  being 
that,  when  the  war  is  finished,  the  old  unionization 
standards  shall  automatically  be  revived. — This  agree- 
ment settled  the  labour  problem  in  England  and  en- 
abled England  to  pile  up  the  enormous  war  materials 
that  are  now  doing  such  service.  Precisely  this  sys- 
tem might  not  succeed  here,  but  we  shall  have  to 
adopt  some  scheme  that  will  produce  the  same  result." 

During  the  present  year  a  War  Labour  Policy 
Board  has  been  appointed  by  the  President  to  co- 
operate with  the  Department  of  Labour  in  carrying 
into  effect  the  labour  programme  prepared  by  the 
Council  of  National  Defense.1  We  are  still  very  far, 
however,  from  a  practical  working  agreement  such  as 
that  which  has  just  been  described.  Temporary  ex- 
pedients, instead  of  a  carefully  planned  and  firmly  exe- 
cuted policy,  are  the  scaffolding  on  which  our  great 
industrial  undertakings  uneasily  rest. 

It  is  refreshing,  therefore,  to  know  that  in  the 
matter  of  the  Employment  Service,  at  least,  we  are 
beginning  to  substitute  well  ordered  machinery  for 
haphazard  opportunism.  A  report  just  received  from 
Connecticut  declares  that  the  most  interesting  phase 
of  the  entire  work  of  that  model  State  Council  is  the 
readjustment  of  the  labour  power  of  the  State  to 
meet  the  emergent  demands  of  the  munitions  factories, 
food  growers,  and  other  essential  war  industries. 
Just  here  let  it  be  noted  that  in  Connecticut  the  vital 
necessity  of  supplying  farmers  with  competent  help 
*See  p.  50. 


92  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

is  recognised  as  at  least  equally  important  with  mu- 
nitions, on  the  practical  ground  that  men  must  be  fed 
or  they  can't  fight;  and  so,  in  regard  to  labour,  Con- 
necticut's key-note  ideas  of  efficiency  stand  out  in  Fed- 
eral Director  Korper's  insistence  on  unity  of  purpose, 
direct  responsibility,  and  adequate  authority  to  secure 
results  in  production  and  delivery.  The  Govern- 
ment's plan  for  a  State  Advisory  Board  and  for  local 
Community  Boards,  with  competent  members  from 
both  employers  and  employed,  provides  for  full  and 
fair  representation  of  all  interests  concerned;  so  that 
when  it  comes  to  carrying  out  the  policies  and  plans 
agreed  upon, — for  recruiting,  placing,  and  moving  la- 
bour, and  transferring  men  from  less  essential  to 
the  most  essential  industries, — Director  Korper  and 
his  counsellors  make  effective  appeals  for  loyal  serv- 
ice, being  remarkably  successful  in  securing  the  enthu- 
siastic co-operation  of  all  concerned,  with  the  backing 
of  a  solid  public  sentiment. 

There  are  now  eight  branches  of  the  United  States 
Employment  Service  in  Connecticut,  with  central  of- 
fices at  Hartford,  New  Haven,  Bridgeport,  Water- 
bury,  Meriden,  Stamford,  New  London,  Willimantic; 
and  through  these  offices  labour  is  placed  in  the  essen- 
tial war  industries.  The  United  States  Public  Service 
Reserve,  which  is  undertaking  the  great  task  of  trans- 
ferring labour  from  lesser  essentials  to  war  work,  has 
established  fourteen  recruiting  agencies  in  Connecti- 
cut, with  central  offices  at  Hartford,  New  Haven, 
Bridgeport,  Waterbury,  New  Britain,  Stamford,  An- 
sonia,  Middletown,  Norwich,  New  London,  Williman- 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  93 

tic,  Torrington,  Rockville,  and  Danielson.  Each  office 
of  the  Employment  Service  has  a  superintendent,  and 
each  station  of  the  Public  Reserve  is  in  charge  of  an 
organiser.  The  Reserve  Organiser's  duty  is  to  se- 
cure at  once  complete  and  accurate  data  concerning 
every  worker  in  non-essential  or  less-essential  indus- 
tries in  his  district,  and  to  lodge  this  information  with 
the  Employment  Service.  Both  of  these  branches  are 
under  the  direction  of  Federal  Director  Korper,  and 
the  big  work  of  enlisting  and  placing  the  man-power 
of  the  State  where  it  is  needed  to  be  most  effective  in 
the  great  cause,  is  now  going  on  with  efficiency  and 
despatch. 

In  a  recent  address  Mr.  N.  A.  Smyth,  acting  as  the 
Assistant  Director  General  of  the  United  States  Em- 
ployment Service,  laid  down  as  follows  the  four  fun- 
damental principles  on  which  the  Service  must  build 
itself  up: 

First,  that  war  work  must  have  the  men  it  needs 
at  any  cost.  The  war  work  of  this  country  has  got 
to  have  the  workers.  That  may  mean  the  closing  of 
industries  which  are  not  essential  to  war.  It  may 
mean  sacrifice  and  loss  to  man  after  man,  but  never- 
theless war  work  has  got  to  have  the  men,  because 
without  the  workers  we  can't  win  the  war,  and  we  are 
going  to  win  the  war.  It  means  something,  too,  in 
our  own  relationship  to  it.  It  means  that  excuses 
on  our  part  won't  go.  It  means  that  when  we  have 
the  task  of  equipping  a  plant  with  workers,  we  have 
got  to  equip  it,  and  it  doesn't  make  any  difference 
how  good  the  reasons  or  how  good  the  excuses  are 
why  we  can't  do  it.  Of  what  value  are  the  best 


94  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

reasons  and  excuses  going  to  be  to  our  children  if  this 
country  doesn't  win  the  war? 

The  second  is  that  in  forcing  the  country  and  in- 
dustry to  make  releases  of  men  that  are  necessary  we 
must  at  every  step  try  to  keep  the  burden,  as  between 
localities  and  industries,  just  as  fairly  divided  as  we 
can;  we  must  not  levy  it  all  on  one  set  of  employers; 
we  must  not  be  unfair  as  between  individual  em- 
ployers; we  must  equalize  the  burden. 

The  third  fundamental  principle  upon  which  the 
work  of  this  department  is  based  is  that,  although  all 
the  force  of  the  Government,  if  necessary,  is  going 
to  be  applied  to  make  industry  give  up  the  necessary 
workers,  we  are  going  to  stick  to  the  volunteer  prin- 
ciple when  it  comes  to  dealing  with  the  individual 
worker. 

And  the  fourth  principle  is  one  that  we  must  re- 
member everywhere  and  practice,  that  we  have  got  to 
put  fit  men  into  war  industries.  You  are 'not  doing 
any  good  if  you  just  fill  up  your  reports  with  large 
numbers  of  men  you  have  directed  to  war  plants. 
You  only  do  good  if  you  send  men  to  those  plants  who 
are  fit  to  work  there.  In  every  step  you  take  remem- 
ber that  the  question  of  the  fitness  of  the  individual 
sent  is  of  the  highest  importance.  To  send  men  unfit 
for  the  work,  or  men  who  won't  stay,  or  men  who  are 
disloyal,  or  men  who  haven't  ability,  is  an  offense 
against  the  war  industry  of  this  country. 

Connecticut  has  been  notably  prompt  in  meeting  all 
her  responsibilities  in  the  Great  War.  The  State  Coun- 
cil of  Defense,  co-operating  with  the  National  Council, 
was  organised  in  April,  1917,  and  Governor  Marcus 
Holcomb  took  the  unique  step  of  securing  a  complete 
census  of  the  man-power  of  the  State,  in  order  to  be 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  95 

ready  for  a  quick  mobilisation  of  the  industrial  re- 
sources as  well  as  military.  Through  the  co-operation 
of  the  towns  each  male  citizen  of  the  State  was  called 
upon  to  fill  out  a  detailed  blank,  telling  just  what  he 
could  do  to  help.  There  was  quick  and  universal  re- 
sponse, with  a  grand  total  of  no  less  than  503,000 
cards,  which  are  now  on  file  at  the  State  Library,  and 
from  which,  by  means  of  tabulating  machines,  a  com- 
plete and  accurate  list  of  the  men  in  any  particular 
occupation  can  be  secured  in  a  very  short  time.  These 
lists  have  proved  invaluable  in  helping  Connecticut 
organise  her  civilian  forces  for  the  War. 

The  key-note  in  Connecticut  has  been  unity  in  or- 
ganisation, definite  leadership,  clear  responsibility; 
with  the  result  that  the  State  has  "done  things"  and 
is  doing  them  right  along,  in  co-operation  with  "Uncle 
Sam,"  in  a  manner  that  has  won  very  cordial  com- 
mendation from  Washington.  The  members  of  the 
State  Council  of  Defense  have  been  constant  and  ac- 
tive in  comprehensive  plans  and  have  taken  care  to 
choose  competent  sub-committees  that  would  work. 
The  State  Council  meets  at  the  Capitol  every  Monday, 
and  some  epoch-making  sessions  have  been  held.  The 
various  sub-committees,  as  on  food,  fuel,  labour,  san- 
itation, industrial  survey,  finance,  are  in  constant 
touch,  and  make  their  plans  in  full  co-operation,  while 
the  people  of  the  entire  State  stand  solidly  back  of 
the  activities  of  the  Council. 

Particularly  noticeable  among  the  many  activities 
of  this  truly  great  Council  is  its  excellent  publicity 
system.  For  example,  knock-down  bulletin  boards 


96  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

(costing  three  dollars  apiece)  have  been  posted  all 
over  the  State — not  only  in  the  168  municipalities  that 
make  up  this  commonwealth  of  towns,  but  at  all  the 
crossroads  of  rural  districts.  They  emblazon  these 
boards  with  such  graphic  educational  material  as  our 
poster,  "The  Prussian  Blot."  The  National  Council 
has  sent  340,000  copies  of  this  poster  throughout 
the  country,  and  has  more  for  proper  distribution. 
Andre  Cheradame  wrote  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
erudite  articles  on  the  Pan-Germanic  scheme;  and 
he  has  shown  that  at  present  Germany  has  realised 
nine-tenths  of  her  ambitious  dream,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  potential  domination  of  Russia.  Our  people  at 
large,  however,  do  not  read  "high-brow"  articles ;  and 
it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  explain  by  word  of  mouth 
to  popular  audiences  just  what  the  "Prussian  Blot" 
means.  You  can  do  it,  however,  with  a  poster,  and 
Connecticut  has  lit  up  the  land  with  these  posters, 
which  any  man  or  woman  can  comprehend  in  five  min- 
utes. It  is  a  plan  that  ought  to  be  widely  copied 
throughout  the  Nation;  for,  when  once  our  people 
realise  the  world  domination  threatened  by  the  present 
war-map  of  Germany,  they  will  show  scant  patience 
to  any  movement  for  an  inconclusive  peace,  because 
they  will  know  that  a  peace  without  victory  is  a  yellow 
peace  for  which  our  sons  will  have  to  pay  the  price 
of  our  cowardice. 

The  Community  Councils  are  organised  to  carry 
forward  this  process  of  popular  education.  We 
Americans  are  all  "from  Missouri";  we  have  got  to 
be  shown.  But  we  can  be  shown.  What  we  have 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  97 

got  to  do  is  to  take  the  remarkable  "Red,  White  and 
Blue"  books,  prepared  by  Dr.  Guy  Stanton  Ford,  of 
the  Committee  on  Public  Information,  and  get  them 
into  the  hands  of  communities  assembled  in  the  school- 
houses.  Certainly  every  leader  ought  to  possess  at 
least  that  remarkable  volume,  "Conquest  and  Kultur," 
and  put  it  into  the  hands  of  the  people.  When  once 
they  pass  the  facts  and  principles  of  this  War  through 
the  mills  of  their  minds,  this  stuff  will  come  out  as 
the  grist  of  patriotic  nourishment,  and  we  shall  have 
behind  our  effort  the  push  of  a  determined  intelligence 
that  will  not  relax  until  the  Allies  have  crossed  the 
Rhine  and  the  German  military  despotism  is  forever 
despoiled  of  its  chance  to  destroy  the  peace  of  the 
world.  If  it  had  been  possible  for  the  Administra- 
tion to  act  when  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  the  emotions 
of  our  people  would  have  been  engaged,  but  that  was 
not  possible;  consequently,  we  have  had  to  substitute 
an  intellectual  process,  which  is  slow  and  exceedingly 
difficult.  But  it  can  be  done;  and  in  this  crisis  we 
are  reaping  the  benefit  of  popular  education;  for  I 
can  testify  that  the  American  people  are  getting  hold 
of  essential  facts  with  astonishing  rapidity,  and  that 
it  is  like  taking  a  thermometer  out  of  the  cellar  into 
the  sunlight  to  travel  through  the  land  and  observe  the 
rise  of  our  civilian  morale. 

Maine  was  the  only  New  England  State  I  failed  to 
visit — the  State  whose  Council  of  Defense  has  recently 
developed  an  admirable  scheme  for  dealing  with  ship- 
yard slackers. 

Going  from  Hartford  to  Boston  in  behalf  of  the 


98  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

War  Employment  Service  last  winter,  I  found  a  large 
group  of  the  big  men  of  Massachusetts  literally  giving 
up  all  of  their  time  to  the  Committee  on  Public  Safety, 
as  they  call  their  defense  council  there.  With  offices 
under  the  old  gilded  dome  of  the  State  House,  men  of 
affairs  whose  names  are  "names  to  conjure  with"  in 
the  Bay  State  work  day  in  and  day  out  to  keep  Massa- 
chusetts mobilised  for  the  War,  having  turned  over 
their  own  business  interests  into  other  hands.  Here, 
as  in  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  and  Rhode  Island, 
I  found:  first,  an  insistence  "to  be  shown";  and  then 
the  most  alert  and  intelligent  endeavour  to  respond  to 
advices  from  Washington.  The  description  of  the 
Connecticut  War  Employment  Service  exemplifies 
what  is  being  done  throughout  New  England. 

In  the  very  month  that  we  entered  the  War,  Massa- 
chusetts led  New  England  in  a  joint  undertaking  of 
great  value  to  Old  England,  and  of  picturesque  inter- 
est to  everybody.  Learning  that  the  historic  forests 
of  England  and  Scotland  were  being  sawed  into  lum- 
ber for  essential  uses  on  the  Western  front,  and  aware 
that  American  sawing  machinery  is  greatly  superior  to 
that  of  Europe,  the  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims  sent 
overseas  ten  saw-mill  units,  accompanied  by  360 
"officers"  and  men,  with  120  horses,  to  operate  them. 
Following  is  the  tabulated  list : 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND  99 

10  portable  mills  and  equipment,     .     .  $46,848  38 

Horses  and  equipment, 43*659  71 

Logging  camp  equipment, 25>725  X3 

Millmen  and  woodsmen, 7,797  3° 

Packing  and   storage, 1,813  31 

Passport     expense, .  621  60 

Transportation, 1,412  (X) 

Miscellaneous, 1,298  82 


Total, $129,176  25 

Perhaps  it  is  worth  while  to  record  the  text  ot  the 
cable  message  sent  by  the  committee  to  a  representa- 
tive of  the  British  government  tendering  the  gift  of 
these  saw-mill  units. 

APRIL  23,  1917. 

Understanding  skilled  lumbermen  needed  in  Eng- 
land to  supply  timber  for  forces  in  France,  New  Eng- 
land gladly  offers  its  services  to  Old  England  in 
assembling  men  and  material  for  ten  complete  work- 
ing portable  saw-mill  units,  all  to  be  shipped  from 
Boston,  each  unit  to  consist  of  thirty  experienced  men 
with  portable  saw  mill,  ten  suitable  horses,  harnesses, 
wagons,  saws,  axes,  other  tools  and  camp  equipment 
ready  for  business  on  landing,  men  all  civilian  volun- 
teers with  capable  man  in  general  charge.  The  cost 
of  the  portable  mill,  horses  and  all  equipment,  includ- 
ing freight  and  other  expenses,  to  steamer  side,  about 
and  not  over  $10,000  per  unit.  Wages  per  month 
per  unit  about  $2,000.  Have  not  yet  consulted  lum- 
ber companies  because  not  certain  English  government 
would  desire  these  outfits,  but  sure  New  England 
would  want  to  contribute  five  of  these  outfits  delivered 
at  steamer  side.  We  assume  if  desired  English  gov- 
ernment could  arrange  space  on  steamer  sailing  from 


100  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Boston.     We  prefer  men  and  outfits  all  on  same 
steamer. 

The  official  reply  of  the  British  government  to  this 
tender  was  received  from  the  British  Ambassador  at 
Washington  in  the  following  letter : — 

BRITISH  EMBASSY,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C, 

MAY  16,  1917. 

I  have  received  a  telegram  from  the  foreign  office 
stating  that  the  war  office  accept  with  gratitude  your 
generous  offer  of  ten  complete  saw-mill  units  for  work 
in  England.  The  war  office  request  me  to  convey  to 
you  an  expression  of  their  high  appreciation  of  the 
very  welcome  co-operation  of  the  New  England  States 
in  this  matter;  and  I  wish  to  add  a  word  of  personal 
thanks  to  the  gentlemen  who  initiated  a  movement  of 
such  immense  practical  importance  to  the  successful 
prosecution  of  the  great  struggle  in  which  our  two 
nations  are  so  happily  united. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CECIL  SPRING-RICE. 

Besides  notable  pioneer  work  in  food  and  fuel  ad 
ministration,  the  mobilisation  of  school  boys  for  farm' 
service,  and  extraordinary  achievements  in  the  settle? 
ment  of  strikes,  Massachusetts  had  accomplished  by 
the  close  of  1917  many  temporary  activities  in  advance 
of  proper  organisation  by  the  Government  for  War 
preparedness.  "Trucks  and  motor  cars  have  been 
listed,"  said  the  Committee's  report,  "and  several  com- 
plete units  of  specially  qualified  men  prepared  for 
mobilisation  in  the  Quartermaster's  Department  of  the 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND         101 

United  States  Army.  A  plan  for  emergency  help  and 
equipment  has  been  completed.  The  efforts  of  vari- 
ous patriotic  societies  have  been  co-ordinated  in  part 
under  the  Red  Cross  and  in  part  under  the  supervision 
of  the  Safety  Committee.  The  general  problem  of 
hygiene,  medicine,  and  sanitation  has  been  considered 
and  met,  and  an  industrial  survey  made  in  co-opera- 
tion with  the  United  States  government  to  enable  a 
fuller  participation  and  a  larger  output  of  materials 
needed  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  purchas- 
ing department  organised  by  the  Safety  Committee 
was  a  large  factor  in  securing  the  necessary  military 
equipment  and  supplies  both  for  the  National  Guard 
Regiments  and  for  the  newly  created  State  Guard. 
Publicity  and  education  in  patriotism  have  not  been 
neglected.  Through  the  co-operation  of  many  for- 
eign-born but  patriotic  American  citizens  the  work  of 
patriotic  assimilation  and  Americanisation  has  been 
going  forward.  The  stirring  war  messages  of  the 
President  have  been  translated  into  many  languages 
and  widely  circulated.  Meetings  have  been  held  in 
various  parts  of  the  State  not  only  to  educate  and 
inspire  citizens  in  performing  their  concrete  duties, 
like  garden  planting,  bond  buying  and  the  like,  but 
also  to  instil  the  larger  patriotism  which  is  necessary 
for  a  clear  view  and  a  triumphant  ending  of  the  war. 
Co-operation  with  the  Boy  Scouts  has  been  undertaken 
as  a  method  of  introducing  boys  to  the  farm  and  in- 
creasing home  patriotism.  The  closest  relationship 
has  existed  with  the  National  Council  of  Women  in 
all  their  many  activities  and  successful  work  in  con- 


102  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

serving  the  resources  of  Massachusetts.  Fortunately 
there  has  been  no  need  of  putting  in  use  concentra- 
tion camps  for  aliens,  but  the  field  was  gone  over  by 
an  adequate  committee  and  plans  prepared  to  meet 
such  a  contingency.  The  Safety  Committee1  early 
became  a  factor  in  the  organisation  of  the  Coast 
Patrol  and  Naval  Reserves.  For  many  months  the 
offices  of  the  committee  were  a  clearing  house  for 
recruits  for  naval  training  and  aviation.  One  of  the 
first  things  done  by  the  Safety  Committee  upon  its 
organisation  was  to  lay  a  clear  plan  for  the  transpor- 
tation of  troops  and  supplies  within  the  State  from 
point  to  point.  Th)anks  to  the  co-operation  of  the  rail- 
road systems  all  this  work  has  been  effectively  accom- 
plished." 

Until  going  to  the  New  Hampshire  Concord  (pro- 
nounced Konk'-erd  up  there,  whereas  in  my  native 
State  we  call  a  town  of  the  same  name  Con-cord),  I 
had  never  seen  a  real  interior  New  England  town,  al- 
though more  or  less  familiar  with  the  cities.  I  felt 
myself  greatly  puzzled,  the  moment  I  stepped  off  the 
train,  with  the  feeling  of  being  perfectly  at  home. 
The  Yankee  rustic  with  his  buckboard  at  the  station, 
the  village  green,  the  neat  and  thrifty  homes,  all 
seemed  strangely  familiar.  Then  I  recalled  that  the 
same  feeling  had  possessed  me  on  first  visiting  London 
and  England,  and  had  greatly  puzzled  me  there,  until 
I  had  reflected  that  as  a  child  I  was  saturated  with 
Dickens.  So  here — had  I  not  grown  up  on  The 
Youth's  Companion?  In  both  cases  it  was  a  singular 
tribute  to  the  ineradicable  influences  of  literature  on 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND          10$ 

the  plastic  mind  of  childhood.  Coming  into  an  actu- 
alisation,  at  length,  of  the  imaginative  scenes  of  early 
youth,  we  feel  like  wanderers  returned  home,  although 
our  fleshly  eyes  look  for  the  first  time  on  novel  yet 
singularly  familiar  surroundings. 

Whether  I  owe  it  to  The  Youth's  Companion  and 
the  boys'  books  of  J.  T.  Trowbridge  I  cannot  after  all 
be  sure,  but  certain  it  is  that  New  England  has  for 
me,  a  stranger,  a  charm  of  cozy  contentment,  and  a 
feeling  of  being  at  home,  that  I  have  never  felt  more 
strongly  anywhere. 

My  chief  opportunities  to  enjoy  New  England  came 
on  two  occasions  after  I  had  resigned  from  the  Coun- 
cil of  National-  Defense.  Going  by  request  of 
Director  Gifford  to  his  home  town,  Salem,  to  make  an 
address  on  war  work  for  which  he  had  not  the  time, 
I  spent  a  day  rambling  through  the  House  of  Seven 
Gables,  with  its  witch-stairways  and  other  weird  oddi- 
ties— exploring  the  alcoves  of  curios  in  the  wonderful 
Marine  Museum,  and  then  meeting  real  American 
people  out  on  the  greensward  at  Ferncroft,  that  makes 
up  one  of  those  rare  days  in  memory  like  some  golden 
picture  from  a  dream. 

Most  delightful  of  all  my  field  agent's  year,  how- 
ever, was  the  journey  through  New  England,  with 
Perigord,  as  the  guest  of  the  Connecticut  Council,  in 
the  last  days  of  a  shimmering  July.  I  did  not  know 
the  "reason"  for  the  trip  until,  on  returning  to  Hart- 
ford from  three  days  of  unalloyed  pleasure,  I  found 
the  following  rollicking  explanation  in  the  daily 
Times: 


104  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Dr.  Scherer  and  Compensation  Commissioner 
George  B.  Chandler  of  Hartford  accompanied  Lieu- 
tenant Perigord  in  a  speaking  and  organizing  tour 
through  the  Rocky  mountains  and  Pacific  coast  States 
last  May.  Mr.  Chandler  is  president  of  the  Hartford 
Automobile  club,  and  thinks  that  the  sun  of  motoring 
and  scenic  supremacy  rises  and  sets  in  New  England. 
Dr.  Scherer,  who  is  president  of  the  Throop  College 
of  Technology  at  Pasadena,  California,  is  likewise  an 
enthusiastic  motorist,  and,  like  all  Southern  Calif  or- 
nians,  a  "booster"  of  his  section.  While  killing  time 
on  sleeping  cars  and  about  hotels  on  the  western  trip, 
neither  Mr.  Chandler  nor  Dr.  Scherer  showed  any  of 
the  qualities  of  the  shrinking  violet  in  portraying  the 
virtues  of  their  respective  localities.  This  "boosting" 
contest  afforded  much  amusement  to  Lieutenant  Peri- 
gord and  Dr.  Guy  Stanton  Ford,  dean  of  the  graduate 
school  of  the  University  of  Minnesota,  who  was  the 
fourth  member  of  the  party. 

When  they  got  to  Los  Angeles  Dr.  Scherer  gave 
his  guests  a  demonstration  and  now  Mr.  Chandler, 
through  the  good  offices  of  Captain  Wickham,  whom 
he  succeeded  as  president  of  the  Auto  club,  is  giving 
a  counter  demonstration.  The  French  lieutenant  is 
apparently  to  be  the  umpire. 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Mr.  Chandler,  "that  Scherer 
nearly  turned  our  hair  white  in  Southern  California. 
He  slipped  on  ahead  from  Albuquerque,  New  Mexico, 
and  when  we  arrived  from  Phoenix,  Arizona,  he  met 
us  at  the  Los  Angeles  depot  with  a  high-powered  car 
and  a  chauffeur x  who  drove  as  though  he  hadn't  been 
in  captivity  more  than  three  weeks.  He  whirled  us 
by  Fox  City  and  Universal  City  and  the  Lord  knows 
how  many  more  cities,  until  the  whole  flower-laden 
country  seemed  to  be  a  moving  picture.  Then,  the 

'Both  lent  by  that  ever  thoughtful  friend  H.  M.  R. 


"UP  NORTH":  NEW  ENGLAND          105 

first  thing  I  knew,  we  were  reeling  around  the  curves 
and  whizzing  up  the  grades  of  Lookout  Mountain. 

"Scherer,  of  course,  didn't  tell  us  that  we  were  on 
a  one-way  road,  and  that  chauffeur  wasn't  tame 
enough  to  talk.  Down  one  side  it  would  be  a  sheer 
five  hundred  or  a  thousand  feet;  up  the  other  side 
ditto.  I  remember  one  hairpin  turn  so  sharp  that  it 
couldn't  be  negotiated  without  backing.  Wild  Bill 
took  those  blind  curves  like  a  New  York  taxi  driver 
catching  a  train  for  a  two  dollar  bonus.  Every  time 
we  shot  around  one  of  them  I  expected  to  be  cata- 
pulted through  the  landscape  by  head-on  collision. 

"The  lieutenant  smiled  quizzically.  I  laughed  in  a 
ghastly  manner,  and  poor  Ford  couldn't  even  make  a 
bluff  at  it.  Scherer's  face  was  an  amused  enigma. 
The  one-way  sign  at  the  top  of  the  mountain  ac- 
quitted the  chauffeur  of  downright  insanity,  and  we 
breathed  a  bit  easier  as  the  big  machine  careened 
around  the  curves  and  smoked  down  the  grades  on  the 
other  side.  Now  that  it's  all  over  I'll  admit  that  the 
doctor  scored  heavily  that  day.  The  roads  were  good 
and  the  view  of  Los  Angeles,  Catalina  and  the  Pacific 
was  magnificent.  So,  too,  was  all  the  wonderful  coun- 
try in  and  about  Los  Angeles  and  Pasadena. 

"This  trip  is  my  innings.  John  Haynes,  with  his 
Vanderbilt  Cup  record,  and  Captain  Wickham's  car 
are  a  combination  New  England  won't  have  to  apolo- 
gise for.  We  Yankees  may  be  effete,  decadent  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  but  we  don't  propose  to  be 
shown  up  by  Southern  California  before  our  distin- 
guished French  guest. 

"Really,  though,  Dr.  Scherer's  country  is  unique.  I 
recall  it  as  a  sort  of  dreamland.  It  is  not  like  any- 
thing else  in  America.  So,  too,  is  the  Columbia  river 
Highway,  at  Portland,  Oregon,  grand  and  inspiring. 
But  there  is  a  reposeful  beauty  and  sophisticated 


106  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

grandeur  about  our  New  England  motoring  country 
that  has  no  American  counterpart.  We  also  have  our 
New  England  highways.  If  you  doubt  it  ask  Lieu- 
tenant Perigord  when  we  get  back.  Dr.  Scherer,  of 
course,  is  incorrigible." 

Before  beginning  my  "war  speech"  at  Hartford  I 
mentioned  this  story  in  The  Times,  which  had  greeted 
us  on  our  return;  and  then  said,  as  I  recalled  that 
wonderful  parallel  series  of  valleys  verdured  by 
brimming  rivers  and  jeweled  with  homes,  that  the 
right  word  for  New  England  is  "homely" — not  in  the 
upstart  modern  meaning  of  this  noble  ancient  word, 
of  course — but  fragrant  with  the  very  soul  of  Home. 

Let  me  now  tell  at  length  of  that  great  Western 
journey  with  Perigord,  Chandler,  and  Ford. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"OUT   WEST":   NEBRASKA,   COLORADO,   NEW  MEXICO, 
CALIFORNIA,  NEVADA 

"SPY!"  I  would  cry  to  the  supposititious  stranger 
that  has  accompanied  us  thus  far  on  our  journeys, — 
"come  with  me  out  to  the  West,  now,  and  let's  see 
how  the  Kaiser  cult  is  succeeding  in  the  fields  of  its 
special  adoption!  How  about  Southern  California, 
infested  with  spies? — or  the  far  Northwest,  with  its 
massive  propaganda  ?— or  the  Central  West  and  its 
German- Americans?  Let  us  see/' 

Nebraska,  perhaps,  quite  as  much  as  any  other  State 
in  the  Union,  had  its  disloyalty  problem,  on  account 
of  its  large  "hyphenate"  population;  and  the  way  it 
was  handled  in  one  of  the  larger  cities  by  Mayor 
Harms,  a  "de-hyphenated"  American  if  ever  there 
was  one,  furnishes  an  ideal  example.  At  the  Nebras- 
ka War  Conference  (where  Mr.  Gurney  Newlin  of 
Los  Angeles  kindly  took  my  place) ,  this  American  of 
German  nativity  made  a  speech  utterly  without  ora- 
tory, yet  movingly  eloquent.  When  America  went 
into  the  War,  he  said,  he  locked  himself  in  the  house 
for  three  days,  "to  find  himself — to  try  out  the  feel- 
ing that  had  not  only  been  born  and  bred  in  him,  but 
had  also  been  further  strengthened  by  education.  At 

107 


108  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  end  of  that  time  he  knew  that  his  teaching  had 
been  false,  and  that  the  salvation  of  the  world  de- 
pended upon  the  crushing  forever  of  the  Prussian  idea 
and  spirit";  and  then — as  the  tears  rolled  down  his 
cheeks : 

"This  should  be  done  by  kindness,  by  education,  by 
persuasion;  but  if  it  cannot  be  done  that  way,  by  jail; 
and  to  put  the  people  of  the  same  country  as  that  of 
my  birth  in  jail  is  hard  for  me,  because  I  am  afraid 
that  they  have  not  been  able  to  see  the  light  as  I  know 
it.  But  even  though  it  may  be  hard,  if  they  cannot 
be  reached  by  kindness  and  education,  they  must  be 
reached  by  force,  which  is  what  they  have  been  ac- 
customed to;  and  in  my  city  we  have  now  no  pro- 
German  element,  and  have  now  no  Pacifist  element. 
Those  that  were  pro-German  have  been  educated  by 
kindness  or  by  force." 

That  is  perfect.  It  should  stand  permanently  as 
one  of  the  valuable  "human  documents"  of  this  War. 
Certainly  I  should  wish  my  friend  the  German  spy  to 
enclose  it  in  his  letter  to  his  Kaiser! 

I  crossed  the  continent  nine  times  during  my  year 
of  Government  service,  twice  for  the  Industrial  Ser- 
vice Department  of  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation, 
three  times  for  the  College  of  which  I  am  president, 
and  four  times  for  the  Council  of  Defense.  Far  and 
away  the  most  interesting  of  these  trips  was  made  in 
May,  1918,  attending  a  group  of  War  Conferences 
in  far  western  States,  accompanied  by  George  Brinton 
Chandler,  of  Connecticut,  Dr.  Guy  Stanton  Ford,  of 


"OUT  WEST"  109 

the  Committee  on  Public  Information,  and  Lieutenant 
Paul  Perigord,  of  the  French  Army. 

Our  first  War  Conference  was  at  Denver.  I  had 
already  visited  Colorado  twice,  once  in  the  preceding 
September,  for  the  National  Council,  and  again  in 
April,  1918,  for  the  Shipping  Board,  or  Emergency 
Fleet  Corporation.  I  knew  what  Colorado  had  done. 

It  is  a  State  singularly  susceptible  to  damage  by 
alien  enemies.  Its  irrigation  system  comprises  thirty- 
two  reservoirs,  each  impounding  more  water  than  the 
famous  Johnstown  dam,  one  of  them  covering  250,000 
acres.  The  mountainous  character  of  the  State, 
moreover,  necessitates  an  unusually  large  number  of 
tunnels  for  the  railroads,  while  the  rich  mines  of  the 
State,  if  undefended,  would  present  a  tempting  bait 
to  German  dynamiters. 

Governor  Gunter,  whom  I  regard  as  one  of  the 
great  War  governors  of  the  country,  assembled  a  war 
council  on  the  very  night  war  was  declared.  The  first 
man  he  thought  of  was  L.  G.  Carpenter,  a  distin- 
guished irrigation  engineer.  With  him  he  summoned 
to  his  office  railroad  presidents,  telephone  managers, 
mine  directors,  and  other  needful  masters  of  emer- 
gency. Before  the  night  was  half  spent  all  Colorado 
was  on  guard  to  avert  potential  danger! 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  State  Council  of 
Defense,  which  has  lived  up  to  the  signal  night  of  its 
birth.  It  was  temporarily  financed  to  the  extent  of 
$12,000  by  several  of  its  members,  who  refused  to 
receive  a  refund  of  their  contributions  after  legisla- 
tive action  had  made  this  refund  possible.  One  prac- 


110  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

tical  patriot  put  up  between  $25,000  and  $50,000  to 
purchase  emergency  seed  for  the  farmers,  and  then 
"lost  his  day-book." 

Responding  promptly  to  the  call  to  arms,  Colorado 
turned  over  to  the  Federal  Government  on  October 
5,  1917,  more  than  four  thousand  soldiers,  every  man 
completely  uniformed  in  conformity  with  Government 
requirements.  These  men  had  been  given  preliminary 
training,  including  setting-up  exercises,  so  that  they 
were  physically  fit  for  the  more  rigourous  drill  to 
come.  Only  seven  per  cent  were  rejected  by  the 
Federal  inspector.  This  neat  job  cost  the  State  half 
a  million  dollars. 

The  State  owed  the  militia  $325,000  when  war  was 
declared.  The  Governor  called  on  five  members  of 
his  Council  and  raised,  within  an  hour,  $350,000  for 
the  immediate  payment  of  this  debt,  which  the  legisla- 
ture subsequently  assumed.  A  medical  rally  was 
called  and  the  physicians  of  the  State  thoroughly 
organized.  In  September,  1917,  I  attended  at  Colo- 
rado Springs  a  state- wide  rally  of  the  Colorado  Medi- 
cal Society,  where  Dr.  A.  C.  Magruder,  the  president, 
delivered  an  address  so  full  of  "punch"  for  medical 
enlistment  that  one  could  but  flinch  by  proxy  for  any 
of  his  unresponsive  hearers.  In  the  same  manner 
the  Governor  lost  no  time  in  calling  convocations  of 
all  county  commissioners,  all  manufacturers,  and — 
last,  but  by  no  means  least — the  State's  leading  news- 
paper men,  some  of  whom  spent  from  fifty  to  seventy- 
five  dollars  in  order  to  answer  his  summons. 

Labor  has  received  due  consideration.     William  C. 


"OUT  WEST"  111 

Thornton,  Chairman  of  the  Labor  Committee  of  the 
Council,  is  president  of  the  Denver  Trade  and  Labor 
Union.  John  Lawson  himself  is  on  this  committee, 
which  has  had  the  cordial  co-operation  also  of  Mover, 
former  associate  of  "Big  Bill"  Haywood.  Through 
this  committee  the  convicts  of  the  State  have  all  been 
used  for  war  work,  and  the  Governor  believes  in  par- 
doning such  as  make  good  records.  This  labor  com- 
mittee also  engages  the  boys  of  the  reform  schools  and 
Indian  schools  in  emergency  war  work. 

Governor  Gunter  probably  gives  more  personal  at- 
tention to  the  work  of  his  Council  than  any  other  Gov- 
ernor in  the  country.  »  It  meets  every  Tuesday  after- 
noon in  his  office,  and  the  occasions  are  rare  when 
he  is  not  in  the  chair,  devoting  half  a  day  of  each 
week  to  supervision  of  Council  activities. 

The  Governor,  a  Democrat,  appointed  Council 
members  regardless  of  politics  (as  should  always  be 
done),  and  it  happens  that  a  majority  are  Republicans. 
For  this  he  has  been  criticised  when  he  should  receive 
credit.  Coming  to  the  chair  from  the  Supreme  Court 
bench,  he  is  a  man  of  scholarly  culture  and  delightful 
refinement  of  manner.  His  judicial  temperament  and 
training  have  not  interfered  with  his  practical  ability 
to  rise  to  the  emergency  of  war. 

George  B.  Chandler  was  borrowed  by  the  National 
Council  from  the  Connecticut  Council  of  Defence  for 
our  War  Conference  circuit  of  May,  1918,  because  of 
his  ability  as  a  speaker  and  also  because  of  the  ex- 
emplary character  of  the  Connecticut  Council,  as  al- 


112  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ready  described.     In  his  report  to  me  of  this  western 
tour  Mr.  Chandler  said,  very  wisely : 

"The  success  or  failure  of  a  State  Council  of  De- 
fense almost  invariably  rests  with  the  Governor.  A 
courageous,  masterful  Governor  means  an  efficient 
Council  of  Defense.  A  timid,  irresolute  Governor 
means  a  weak  and  disjointed  Council  of  Defense. 

"The  character  of  a  State  Council  of  Defense  is  de- 
termined at  the  apex  and  at  the  base.  At  the  top  of 
the  Council  must  be  adequate  funds  for  the  creation 
of  the  necessary  machinery.  There  must  be  enough 
money  to  provide  offices,  a  competent  manager,  clerical 
help,  stenographers,  travelling  expenses,  and  telephone 
service,  proportionate  to  the  magnitude  of  the  enter- 
prise. At  the  bottom  there  must  be  a  vigorous,  healthy 
community  organisation.  This  community  organi- 
sation may  assume  various  forms;  e.  g.,  in  Connecti- 
cut, the  Old  New  England  township;  in  Utah,  the 
'wards'  and  'blocks'  of  the  Mormon  church  organisa- 
tion; in  other  States  either  the  school  district,  voting 
precinct,  or  some  artificial  unit  carved  out  for  war 
purposes. 

"It  has  been  my  observation  that  the  county  organi- 
sations, which  constitute  the  middle  strata  of  Councils 
of  Defense,  are  the  easiest  to  organise  and  usually  in 
the  most  healthy  condition. 

"Co-ordination  of  all  the  various  war  activities 
within  or  about  the  State  Council  of  Defense  and  its 
subordinate  parts  is  of  primary  importance.  If  the 
Council  and  its  various  arms  are  vigorous  and  efficient, 
this  co-ordination  comes  about  naturally  and  almost 
inevitably.  Where  they  are  a  mere  shell  or  blueprint, 
it  is  absurd  to  ask  such  well-financed  and  effectively 
organised  institutions  as  the  Red  Cross,  the  Liberty 
Loan,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  to  co-ordinate  with  them 


"OUT  WEST"  113 

or  even  co-operate  with  them.     In  other  words,  'To 
him  that  hath  shall  be  given/  etc." 

Chandler  agrees  with  me  that  Governor  Gunter  is 
"a  man  of  scholarship,  culture,  courage,  and  ability." 
I  dwell  on  this  because  Coloradans  have  not  had  the 
opportunity  to  judge  their  Governor,  as  we  have,  in 
comparison  with  the  common  run  throughout  the 
States. 

I  shall  never  forgive  him,  however,  for  the  scare 
he  gave  me  on  the  night  of  that  Denver  mass  meet- 
ing in  May.  With  a  brass-buttoned  general  or  two 
he  called  for  our  party  at  the  Brown  Palace  hotel 
with  a  big  automobile  just  after  we  had  finished  our 
dinner.  We  had  seen  no  signs  of  a  mass  meeting  in 
the  newspapers,  and  were  afraid  (after  certain  former 
experiences)  that  the  publicity  department  had  broken 
down.  The  Governor  was  very  quiet,  too;  his  man- 
ner was  modest  and  subdued.  Presently,  moreover, 
when  we  reached  the  great  turtle-shell  of  an  audi- 
torium, the  streets  seemed  entirely  deserted — except, 
indeed,  for  triple  rows  of  empty  automobiles  that  we 
scarcely  had  time  to  observe.  Our  big  car  charged 
straight  at  the  side  of  the  turtle-back,  when,  Presto  f 
two  burly  policemen  swung  back  a  pair  of  huge  doors, 
and,  without  pause,  our  great  car  rolled  in  to  the  front 
of  the  platform.  Everybody  was  inside!  There 
were  twelve  thousand  people  present,  waving  flags 
and  singing  community  songs  to  the  bellow  of  a  Gul- 
liver organ.  We  stepped  from  the  car  to  the  plat- 
form. I  was  to  speak  first — and  to  this  multitude, 


114  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

who  had  come  there  to  worship  Paul  Perigordl  My 
imagination  had  not  made  me  ready  for  this;  I  was 
used  only  to  ordinary  War  Conferences.  At  least,  I 
thought,  the  Governor  will  give  me  a  chance  of  adjust- 
ment while  he  introduces  me;  but,  no!  a  dozen  words, 
and  he  threw  me  to  the  lions! 

I  am  an  old  hand  at  public  speaking,  and  toughened 
to  stage  fright;  but  I  was  as  scared  as  a  California 
jack-rabbit  when  a  new  town  dumps  itself  into  the 
desert  from  the  trolley-cars.  Being  scared,  I  did  what 
the  jack-rabbit  does,  speeded-up.  The  shorthand  re- 
porters held  an  indignation  meeting  around  my  re- 
mains after  the  meeting,  while  the  French  and  the 
Catholics  in  the  audience  were  kissing  Paul  Peri- 
gord's  sword — the  sword  of  this  Soul  of  France, 
whom  we  cannot  honour  too  much. 

From  Denver  our  party  dropped  southward,  across 
the  great  Colorado  plateau,  to  New  Mexico.  During 
this  journey  the  brace  of  "tenderfeet"  from  the  East 
began  in  their  dull  simple  way  to  ogle  and  exclaim  at 
the  scenery.  At  this  juncture  I  said : 

"Gentlemen,  permit  me  to  utter  one  word;  then  I 
shall  have  no  more  to  say — Just  wait  till  you  see  Cali- 
fornia!" 

Since  no  Calif orniac  (and  I  proudly  claim  to  be 
one)  has  ever  been  known  to  boast,  I  then  placed  my 
hand  upon  my  mouth,  and  we  got  off  the  train  at 
Albuquerque. 

For  some  reason  or  other,  Washington  had  not  re- 
ceived full  reports  from  New  Mexico.  During  ten 
minutes'  conversation  with  an  active  member  of  the 


"OUT  WEST"  115 

Council  I  picked  up  the  following  interesting  informa- 
tion: 

Secretary  McAdoo,  passing  through  this  famous 
stage-house,  Albuquerque,  on  the  best  of  all  the  great 
rail-highways  from  coast  to  coast,  gave  New  Mexico 
officials  with  his  own  hands  the  first  of  the  honour- 
flags  to  be  distributed  for  the  Third  Liberty  Bond 
undertaking.  Their  quota  had  been  $739,000,  and 
they  raised  $955,000.  Ten  counties  comprising  the 
tenth  federal  district  exceeded  their  quota  215  per 
cent.  In  one  county  of  25,000  inhabitants  five  thou*- 
sand  people  took  bonds.  The  Santa  Fe  shop  em- 
ployees at  Albuquerque  all  took  bonds — making  a 
clean  100  per  cent  record.  And  I  would  introduce 
my  Spy  to  the  de-hyphenated  lady  residing  in  the  town 
of  Carlsbad,  who  put  every  dollar  of  her  convertible 
property  (six  thousand  dollars  in  all)  into  Liberty 
Bonds. 

The  comparatively  "poor"  State  of  New  Mexico 
is  further  markworthy  for  the  large  appropriation 
made  by  its  legislature  to  the  war  work  of  the  Council 
of  Defense:  $750,000  as  against  $40,000  for  her  huge 
neighbor  to  the  East,  and  $100,000  for  her  rich  col- 
league to  the  westward,  California.  This  is  doubtless 
due  to  a  natural  resentment  over  the  following  letter, 
preserved  for  us  in  that  remarkable  volume,  "Out  of 
Their  Own  Mouths,"  which  consists  of  classic  gems 
of  Prussian  "ideals"  extending  all  the  way  down  from 
Frederick  the  Great  to  Zimmermann  the  Little. 

Our  national  sense  of  humour  should  not  blind  us 
to  the  fact  that  this  infamous  despatch  was  meant  in 


116  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

all  seriousness.  It  was  sent  on  January  19,  1917, 
by  Herr  Zimmermann,  German  Imperial  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  to  the  German  Minister  in 
Mexico. 

"On  the  ist  of  February,"  whispered  Herr  Zim- 
mermann, never  dreaming  that  Uncle  Sam  could  over- 
hear, "we  intend  to  begin  unrestricted  submarine  war- 
fare. In  spite  of  this,  it  is  our  intention  to  endeavour 
to  keep  the  United  States  of  America  neutral. 

"If  this  attempt  is  not  successful,  we  propose  an 
alliance  with  Mexico  on  the  following  basis:  That 
we  shall  make  war  together  and  together  make  peace. 
We  shall  give  general  financial  support,  and  it  is 
understood  that  Mexico  is  to  reconquer  the  lost  terri- 
tory in  New  Mexico,  Texas  and  Arizona.  The  de- 
tails are  left  to  you  for  settlement.* 

"You  are  instructed  to  inform  the  President  of 
Mexico  of  the  above,  in  the  greatest  confidence,  as 
soon  as  it  is  certain  that  there  will  be  an  outbreak  of 
war  with  the  United  States,  and  to  suggest  that  the 
President  of  Mexico,  on  his  own  initiative,  should 
communicate  with  Japan  suggesting  adherence  at  once 
to  this  plan.  At  the  same  time  he  should  offer  to 
mediate  between  Germany  and  Japan. 

"Please  call  to  the  attention  of  the  President  of 
Mexico  that  the  employment  of  ruthless  submarine 
warfare  now  promises  to  compel  England  to  make 
peace  m  a  few  months." 

*This  sentence,  italicized  by  the  present  writer,  is  one  of  the 
choicest  bits  of  unintended  humour  in  modern  history. 


"OUT  WEST"  117 

This  was  in  January,  1917.  People  who  accuse 
President  Wilson  of  a  lack  of  humour  should  re- 
member how  he  used  the  Zimmermann  letter.  He 
kept  it  quiet  until  Bethmann-Hollweg  had  the  unex- 
ampled audacity  to  harangue  our  own  people,  in  our 
own  newspapers,  and  also  in  the  Hearst  newspapers, 
against  our  own  President.  It  was  a  lengthy  and 
artful  harangue,  calculated  to  be  very  mischievous; 
written  in  a  tone  of  deeply  injured  innocence,  and  pro- 
fessing profound  friendship  for  the  United  States. 
The  President  never  said  a  word,  he  simply  published 
the  Zimmermann  letter — whereupon  the  Herren  Zim- 
mermann and  Hollweg,  if  one  may  use  a  homely 
American  phrase  to  describe  a  homelier  German  farce, 
promptly  "went  away  back  and  sat  down" — hard. 

It  was  the  publication  of  this  Zimmermann  letter 
that  led  my  own  boy  to  immediate  decision.  I  remem- 
ber the  little  breakfast  room  in  Pasadena,  its  blessed 
windows  looking  out  through  twin  rows  of  Sentinel 
Palms  toward  the  blue  range  of  the  Sierra  Madre 
mountains;  how  I  came  in  and  found  him,  this  lanky 
boy  of  nineteen,  on  the  window-seat  with  the  Los 
Angeles  Times  in  his  hand. 

"Father,  is  this  true?"  he  asked  me;  and  when  my 
eyes  had  run  down  the  page  I  said : 

"Of  course  it  isn't  true ;  it's  an  obvious  forgery,  and 
a  very  clumsy  forgery  at  that.  The  Germans  would 
be  the  last  people  in  the  world  to  send  such  a  foolish 
despatch." 

When  he  came  back  from  college  in  the  evening  he 
said  that  his  German  professor  had  also  told  them  in 


118  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  class-room  that  of  course  it  wasn't  true ;  but  that 
if  it  were  true,  then  he  was  done  with  the  Prussians, 
bone  of  their  bone  though  he  be:  they  were  Schwein- 
hunde! 

And  shortly  they  had  to  confess  it!  "Uncle  Sam 
had  the  goods  on  them !" 

Then  the  boy  came  again,  with  two  questions: 

"Father,  is  there  any  chance  of  the  Mexicans  cross- 
ing the  border  and  coming  up  here  and  attacking  our 
homes?" 

"Not  a  chance  in  the  world,"  said  I,  unabashed  by 
my  bad  guess  of  the  "forgery." 

"Well,  is  there  any  chance  of  the  Japanese  coming 
over  and  attacking  our  coasts?" 

Now,  I  had  lived  in  Japan  five  years, — before  the 
boy  was  born, — and  I  thought  I  knew  the  Japanese 
pretty  nearly  as  well  as  Mr.  Hearst  does  not  know 
them,  which  is  saying  a  very  great  deal.  (The  Los 
Angeles  Examiner  was  flooding  Southern  California 
in  those  days  with  slimy  falsehoods  of  Japanese 
knavery.)  I  saw  how  the  boy's  mind  was  working: 
he  didn't  intend  going  "over  there" — of  which  he 
hadn't  said  a  word  to  us  yet — if  there  were  to  be  real 
need  "over  here,"  defending  his  home  folk;  but  I 
told  him  not  to  worry  about  Japan.  And  so  he  made 
his  great  decision,  and  went  a-chasing  Zimmermann 
submarines,  this  lad  with  a  c  in  his  name.1 

*As  I  write,  the  following  despatch  concerning  his  ship  ap- 
pears in  The  Washington  Star: 

"LONDON,  Aug.  7.— It  is  announced  that  the  United  States 
torpedo  boat  destroyer now  holds  the  record  in  the  United 


"OUT  WEST"  119 

So  our  family  remembers  the  Zimmermann  note, 
just  as  New  Mexico  remembers  it  $750,000  worth. 
New  Mexico  is  also  doing  a  little  Mexican  propaganda 
of  its  own,  now,  by  printing  a  large  edition  of  the 
Council's  "War  News"  in  Spanish;  and  it  is  also  shut- 
ting out  the  Hearst  newspapers. 

New  Mexico  is  spending  a  little  of  its  large  appro- 
priation in  buying  seeds  for  its  ranchmen;  in  cultivat- 
ing really  notable  war-gardens;  and  in  agrarian  war- 
fare against  predatory  animals,  which  destroy  five  mil- 
lion dollars'  worth  of  food-stuffs  in  New  Mexico  an- 
nually. The  Council  also  has  put  up  a  war  hospital 
in  Albuquerque,  to  take  care  of  sick  soldiers  passing 
through  on  the  Santa  Fe  trains.  Bernalillo  county, 
of  which  Albuquerque  is  the  seat,  had  independently 
contributed,  when  we  were  there,  $42,000  to  a  War 
Chest. 

I  closed  my  report  from  Albuquerque  with  the 
words :  "I  go  to  Paradise  tonight."  One  of  my  col- 
leagues, as  I  found  on  returning  to  Washington,  put 
it  this  way:  "Scherer  at  this  point  felt  the  lure  of 
Southern  California  strong  upon  him,  and  left  us  after 
the  afternoon  meeting.  When  I  saw  Pasadena,  I 
understood  why." 

A  distinguished  resident  of  Northern  California 
told  me,  shortly  after  I  went  to  reside  in  Southern 
California,  that  its  chief  characteristics  are  "one- 
lungers"  and  climate.  The  climate  does  draw  the 

States  Navy  for  submarine  chasing.    Since  arriving  in  European 

waters  in  April  a  year  ago  the  has  steamed  over  74,000 

miles." 


120  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"one-lungers"  out  there ;  then  it  makes  them  well,  and 
they  grow  citrus  fruits.  They  come  to  cough,  and 
remain  to  spray  the  San  Jose  scale  off  the  golden 
globes  that  are  so  easily  convertible  (in  normal  years) 
into  good  legal  tender.  This  makes  a  fair  combina- 
tion. Lazy  people,  "back  East,"  never  break  down 
from  overwork,  so  they  stay  where  they  belong.  In 
the  exuberant  climate  of  Southern  California,  which 
even  our  envious  enemies  allow  to  us,  the  survivors 
of  the  fittest  become  entirely  fit  again,  and  so  with  our 
"one-lungers"  and  climate  and  a  few  other  modest 
commodities  we  build  up  an  eclectic  community  of 
Calif orniacs.  But  we  never  boast.1  Accordingly  I 
shall  not  boast  of  the  California  State  Council  of  De- 
fense.2 It  is  simple  justice  to  remark,  however,  that 
the  great  Sacramento  mass  meeting  was  equal  to  any 
of  the  series,  and  that  its  pronounced  success  was 
largely  due  to  community  singing,  without  which  no 
patriotic  meeting  is  complete. 

From  Sacramento  our  party  went  to  Reno,  an  in- 
nocent looking  mountain  town  bisected  by  the  rushing 
Truckee  River.  We  found  Nevada  organised  one 
hundred  per  cent.  A  "barn-storming"  campaign  car- 
ried out  under  the  leadership  of  a  young  and  aggres- 
sive Governor  had  carried  War  facts  home  to  every* 
cranny  of  the  State.  Perhaps  Nevada  thinks  in  too 

*To  be  perfectly  honest  about  it,  I  regret  to  confess  that 
this  sentence  is  true  only  because  for  boasting  we  substitute 
"boosting" :  a  somewhat  vulgar  combination  of  boasting  and 
booming,  combining  the  evils  of  both.  But  the  climate  is  help- 
ing us  to  conquer  that  zymotic  disease,  too! 

'  See,  however,  p.  175  ff. 


"OUT  WEST"  121 

light  a  vein  of  what  we  heard  called  "extra-legal  treat- 
ment" for  suspects  of  disloyalty.  President  Wilson, 
when  we  were  there,  had  not  yet  issued  his  eloquent 
appeal  against  lynch  law,  which  was  greatly  needed 
if  one  may  judge  from  the  following  rough  paraphrase 
of  a  report  to  Governor  Doyle  by  one  of  his  sheriffs : 

"I  regret  to  report  to  Your  Excellency  that  on  such 
and  such  a  date,  such  and  such  a  person  was  forcibly 
taken  from  my  possession  by  parties  unknown.  He 
was  placed  on  trial  by  an  improvised  tribunal  and 
found  guilty  of  lukewarmness  toward  the  cause  of 
the  United  States  and  our  Allies.  Thereupon,  Your 
Excellency,  I  regret  to  report  that  said  unknown  per- 
sons proceeded  to  strip  such  party  to  the  waist  and 
applied  to  his  body  a  coating  of  black  substance  which, 
I  am  told,  was  tar.  Thereafter,  they  applied,  to  the 
surface  thus  covered,  a  coating  which,  I  am  told,  was 
feathers;  whereupon  they  forcibly  applied  to  his  per- 
son the  toes  of  their  boots  and  instructed  him  to  leave 
the  country,  telling  him  that  if  he  ever  comes  back 
they  will  lynch  him — and  if  he  does,  by ,  Gov- 
ernor, we  will." 


CHAPTER  IX 
"OUT  WEST":  UTAH,  IDAHO,  OREGON,  WASHINGTON, 

MONTANA 

TWO  inland  cities  wield  a  special  grip  on  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  traveller  fortunate  enough  to  win  their 
acquaintance :  Salt  Lake  City  and  Spokane.  You  can 
always  tell  such  a  traveller  by  the  fact  that  he  says 
Spo-kan'.  This  city  lies  high  and  dry  in  the  thin 
light  air  of  "the  inland  empire,"  its  clean  streets 
sparkling  in  that  rare  sunlight  known  only  to  the 
West,  a  roaring  silvery  river  dashing  through  them 
and  turning  the  city's  power-wheels  as  it  goes.  Spo- 
kane's shops  are  better  stocked  than  those  of  Wash- 
ington or  Baltimore,  the  women  dress  with  a  style 
and  taste  that  Fifth  Avenue  seems  to  have  lost, 
and  you  find  displayed  on  the  shelves  of  the  book- 
stores the  latest  philosophies,  as  well  as  the  novels  of 
George  Meredith  and  Henry  James, — to  say  noth- 
ing of  "Ruggles  of  Red  Gap,"  that  whimsical  satire 
by  Harry  Leon  Wilson  of  "life  as  she  is  lived"  by 
social  pretenders  in  this  western  country  instead  of 
"those  who  know." 

Then  there  is  the  hotel,  the  Davenport.  If  there 
is  a  better  hotel  in  these  United  States,  "I  ask  to 
know,"  in  the  phrase  of  our  good  friend,  Hashimura 

122 


"OUT  WEST"  123 

Togo,  where  to  find  it.  The  management  does  not 
know  me  from  Adam,  and  has  never  given  or  promised 
me  a  free  meal.  I  am  only  a  sadly  harassed  traveller 
grateful  for  this  oasis  in  a  wilderness  of  common- 
place hotels,  and  furnishing  a  free  testimonial  "for 
the  benefit  of  suffering  humanity."  It  is  equal  to  the 
"Palace"  in  San  Francisco  or  the  "Utah"  at  Salt  Lake 
City,  "and  I  can  say  no  fairer  than  that." 

American  hotels  have  improved  greatly  in  the  past 
twenty  years,  but  they  still  have  something  to  learn, 
and  that  is  that  guests  nowadays  like  to  drink  water. 
The  Davenport  and  a  few  others  like  it  have  awaked 
to  this  new  hygienic  discovery,  so  that  you  find  a 
faucet  of  cold  drinking-water  over  your  basin  between 
those  that  run  "hot"  and  "cold."  But  in  the  average 
hotel  you  have  to  persuade  a  bell-boy,  with  a  tip,  to 
go  out  and  persuade  some  other  bell-boy,  who  also 
expects  to  be  tipped,  to  fetch  you  a  belly-shaped  pitcher 
choked  with  lumps  of  ice  that  reek  with  the  smell  of 
some  strong  disinfectant,  all  of  which  is  promptly  re- 
moved by  the  chambermaid  on  the  occasion  of  her 
first  incursion.  Either  this,  or  sixty  cents — plus  a 
tip — to  an  apron-clad  waiter  from  the  "bar,"  with  a 
bottle  of  lukewarm  Poland  water,  for  which  invisible 
intruders  into  the  room  promptly  acquire  a  wild  thirst. 
A  "vast  conspiracy,"  powerful  and  wide-spread  as 
that  which  Mr.  Hearst  avers  to  be  on  the  trail  of  his 
persecuted  newspapers — which  ought  to  be  prosecuted 
instead! — trails  the  quest  of  the  traveller  for  water, 
and  drives  him  at  last  to  cola-coca  or  Vebo  or  some 
other  substitute  for  the  waters  of  Nepenthe,  while  the 


124  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

States  keep  going  dry.  It  is  high  time  for  scientific 
prohibitionists  to  read  Horace  Bushnell's  justly  cele- 
brated treatise  on  "The  Expulsive  Power  of  a  New 
Affection,"  and  undertake  a  nation-wide  movement  to 
inculcate  a  quenchable  affection  for  water  before  the 
erstwhile  inebriate  becomes  an  inveterate  Vebobriate. 
The  "Gideons"  have  put  a  Bible  into  every  bed-room; 
why  not  some  "follow-up  system"  of  Gideon's  pitchers, 
filled  with  cups  of  cold  water? 

The  State  of  Utah  is  distinctly  exotic.  Socially,  as 
well  as  topographically,  it  has  a  pronouncedly  foreign 
flavour  that  is  yet  so  unlike  anything  in  one's  foreign 
experiences  as  to  make  it  Utah  the  unique.  There  is 
its  Great  Salt  Lake,  everybody  knows  about  that;  but 
who,  as  Julian  Street  triumphantly  interrogates,  knows 
that  the  Uintah  Mountain  Range,  in  Utah,  is  the  only 
range  in  the  entire  country  that  runs  East  and  West? 
"And  what  do  you  know  of  the  Wahsatch  and  Oquirrh 
Ranges  ? 

"Not  wishing  to  keep  the  class  in  geography  after 
school,  I  shall  not  tell  you  about  these  mountains,  but 
will  satisfy  myself  with  the  statement  that,  in  an 
amphitheatre  formed  between  the  two  last  mentioned 
ranges,  at  the  head  of  a  broad,  irrigated  valley,  is  sit- 
uated Salt  Lake  City."1 

When  the  Secretary  of  the  Utah  State  Council  of 
Defense  motored  with  me  to  the  very  tip-top  of  this 
valley,  and  we  stood  where  Brigham  stood  as  he 
viewed  the  landscape  o'er  after  he  led  his  people  from 
the  desert  through  the  mountain  gap  to  this  promised 

1  "Abroad  at  Home,"  Street,  p.  440. 


"OUT  WEST"  125 

land,  I  could  not  wonder  that  he  paused  at  the  head 
of  his  people  and  flocks  and  herds,  and,  with  a  busi- 
ness-like intuition  that  never  forsook  him,  stretched 
out  his  hand  benignly  over  the  smiling  valley  and  ut- 
tered the  simple,  empire-building  words :  "This  is  the 
place."2 

There  is  a  somewhat  stodgy  statue  of  Brigham 
Young  on  a  high  pedestal  in  an  imposing  square  at 
the  corner  of  Hotel  Utah,  the  statue  being  unfor- 
tunately so  placed  as  to  incur  the  satire  of  the  godless 
"Gentiles,"  who  constitute  sixty  per  cent  of  the  Salt 
Lake  City  population,  and  who  gleefully  request  the 
passing  stranger  to  note  that  Brigham  is  placed,  "as 
in  life,"  with  his  back  to  the  church  and  his  hand 
reaching  out  toward  the  bank. 

People  will  say  unkind  things  about  statues,  how- 
ever. Here  in  Washington  City,  whenever  the  Mt. 
Pleasant  cars  summon  the  strength  to  climb  the  gentle 
slope  that  leads  from  Connecticut  Avenue  into  Colum- 
bia Road,  where  California  Street  branches  away  on 
either  side,  you  cannot  forget,  as  the  equestrian  Mc- 

'July  24,  1847.  The  party  consisted  of  143  men,  three  women, 
and  two  children.  On  their  long  journey  across  the  plains  the 
company  was  well  organised.  "Every  morning  at  five  o'clock 
the  bugle  was  sounded  to  awaken  the  camp.  All  assembled  for 
prayers,  then  took  breakfast,  and  the  second  bugle  was  sounded 
when  the  company  began  to  march.  They  travelled  about 
twenty  miles  each  day,  and  at  seven  o'clock  evening  prayers 
were  said,  after  which  the  'brethren  and  sisters'  gathered  around 
the  fire  and  sang  songs,  accompanied  by  the  band  which  Brigham 
Young  had  organized." — "Chief  Episodes  in  the  History  of 
Utah,"  by  L.  E.  Young,  a  nephew  of  Brigham,  now  a  professor 
in  the  University  of  Utah. 


126  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Clellan  prances  high  on  his  pedestal,  the  remark  of  the 
wag  who  said: 

"True  to  the  life,  indeed!  One  line  of  advance 
and  three  of  retreat,  as  usual !" 

Uncle  Joe  Cannon  has  set  a  canny  example  in 
selecting  the  site  of  his  tombstone  himself,  so  that  the 
wag  cannot  molest  or  the  witty  man  make  his  shade 
afraid. 

The  valley  is  infinitely  more  beautiful  now  than 
when  Brigham  Young  said,  "This  is  the  place,"  largely 
in  consequence  of  his  vision  and  industrial  general- 
ship; for,  think  what  you  will  of  his  religion,  as  an 
empire-builder  he  takes  rank  with  Cecil  Rhodes. 
When  he  stretched  out  his  hand,  it  was  to  strike  the 
rock,  and  give  the  valley  the  one  thing  needful,  water, 
so  as  to  make  the  wilderness  blossom  as  the  rose. 
This  he  did  by  means  of  vast  irrigation  projects  grand- 
iosely conceived  but  executed  with  superb  practicality. 
When  Salt  Lake  City  was  only  a  dream  in  his  brain, 
he  not  only  laid  out  the  streets,  avenues,  and  boule- 
vards of  a  great  metropolis,  but  planted  them  with 
multitudinous  box-elders  and  poplars,  which  he  irri- 
gated to  secure  their  umbrageous  growth,  and  to-day 
the  flesh  and  arteries  of  the  Mormon  Zion  have  en- 
dued his  dream-skeleton  with  richly  abundant  life. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  University  of  Utah, 
crowning  high  ground  which  overlooks  the  city  and 
far-spreading  valleys  and  snow-capped  far-away 
mountains,  commands  the  finest  view  of  any  university 
in  the  world  that  I  have  seen,  and  I  have  seen  the 
most  of  them;  or  to  add  that  the  Agricultural  College 


"OUT  WEST"  127 

at  Logan  (a  genuine  agricultural  college)  stands  a 
fine  chance  for  second  place. 

The  early  history  of  Utah  is  characterised  by  certain 
beautiful  incidents.  One  sees  the  statue  of  the  gulls 
in  the  temple  grounds,  or  notes  the  figure  on  the  State 
emblems,  and  wonders  why.  Thereby  hangs  a  tale 
savouring  of  miracle,  like  the  quail  or  the  manna  of  the 
Bible. 

In  the  spring  of  1848  the  pioneers  planted  five  thou- 
sand acres  of  wheat.  The  original  party  had  quickly 
been  augmented  by  the  "First  Immigration,"  compris- 
ing 1,553  souls,  with  "580  wagons,  2,213  oxen,  124 
horses,  887  cows,  358  sheep,  35  hogs,  and  716 
chickens";  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  1847  f°ur 
thousand  people  had  settled  in  Salt  Lake  Valley.  Be- 
sides, other  pioneers  were  on  the  road,  so  that  the 
need  of  this  wheat  crop  was  pressing. 

Imagine  the  dismay  of  the  Mormons  when,  during 
the  last  week  in  May,  when  there  was  every  prospect 
of  abundant  fruition,  hordes  of  crickets  swooped 
down  on  the  wheat-fields,  hopping  forward  like  some 
black  army  of  destruction,  and  leaving  the  fields  be- 
hind them  as  bare  as  the  palm  of  your  hand!  Every 
device  was  used  to  check  them,  all  in  vain;  even  in 
spite  of  the  fires  that  were  set  to  destroy  them,  the 
crickets  advanced  and  increased.  The  people  were 
desperate;  women  and  children  wept  with  fright,  and 
the  hearts  of  the  strong  men  failed  them  for  terror. 
They  fasted  and  prayed ;  then,  lo ! 

"From  the  shores  and  islands  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake 
came  the  gulls,  myriads  of  these  snow-white  birds, 


128  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

with  wild  cries  winging  their  way.  A  new  fear  arose 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  as  they  saw  the  birds  alight 
in  their  fields,  a  fear  that  another  foe  had  come  to 
complete  the  destruction  of  their  growing  grain. 
Their  joy  may  be  imagined  when  they  saw  the  gulls 
pounce  upon  the  black  crickets  and  gorge  themselves, 
returning  again  and  again  to  the  repast.  The  people 
gazed  in  amazement  upon  the  birds  and  their  beneficent 
work.  No  wonder  it  seemed  to  them  a  sheer  miracle 
from  heaven,  a  direct  and  convincing  answer  to  their 
prayers.  For  six  days  the  destruction  went  on,  and 
on  the  evening  of  the  sixth  day,  which  was  Sunday, 
these  winged  deliverers  quietly  flew  back  to  their 
island  homes  in  the  bosom  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake."1 

My  field-agent's  year  took  me  three  times  to  Utah — 
twice  for  the  Council  and  once  for  the  Shipping  Board. 
During  the  first  visit  (in  September,  1917),  I  en- 
countered an  interesting  illustration  of  religion  as  a 
handmaid  of  patriotism. 

A  Mormon  member  of  the  State  Council  of  Defense 
told  me  that  when  he  was  a  little  boy  his  mother  drilled 
into  his  mind  the  necessity  of  always  storing  tithes  of 
the  wheat.  Brigham  Young,  she  said,  had  told  the 
women  of  his  time  that  a  wheat  famine  lay  in  the 
future  and  that  they  should  store  up  grain  against 
the  lean  years  to  come.  Each  season,  therefore,  an 
increment  has  been  added  to  the  store-house  to  be 
found  on  each  farm,  due  renovation  nullifying  havoc 
wrought  by  the  weevils ;  until  to-day,  according  to  my 
informant,  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  bushels 
'The  same. 


"OUT  WEST"  129 

of  wheat  stored  in  Utah — and  the  Mormons  confi- 
dently believe  that  this  War  is  the  exigency  which  the 
prophet  Brigham  foresaw,  and  are  perfectly  willing 
to  use  their  wheat  to  win  the  War. 

On  the  occasion  of  this  first  trip  to  Utah  I  reported 
that  without  doubt  Salt  Lake  City  was  the  most 
patriotic  place  I  had  visited.  On  the  Saturday  night 
of  my  stay  there  I  strolled  into  the  finest  moving- 
picture  theatre  on  the  continent;  a  great  palace  of  a 
place,  seating  an  audience  of  thirty-five  hundred. 
Mind  you,  this  was  in  September,  1917;  the  country 
had  not  yet  waked  up;  in  most  cities  and  towns  the 
people  seemed  timid  with  patriotic  applause.  But 
when  I  entered  and  while  I  remained  the  building 
rocked  again  and  again  with  tonic  applause  as  our 
troops  and  the  flag  were  filmed. 

This  was  only  a  spectacular  symbolism  of  the  sub- 
stantial patriotism  of  Utah.  The  organisation  of 
the  Mormon  church,  which,  as  an  organisation,  is  unr 
surpassed,  has  devoted  its  machinery  to  war  work,  and 
the  "Gentiles"  vie  with  the  "Latter-day  Saints"  in 
avoiding  the  curse  of  Meroz.  Of  the  first  Liberty 
Loan,  Utah  was  allotted  $6,500,000  and  subscribed 
$9,405,050,  and  has  since  lived  up  to  this  record  in 
every  respect  Although  its  only  coast-line  is  the 
shore  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  it  responded  with 
2,500  shipbuilders  when  asked  for  1,660,  and  when 
I  was  there  in  April,  1918,  a  proud  procession 
of  labouring  men  marched  up  the  main  street  of  Salt 
Lake  City  under  the  banner,  "Utah's  Shipbuilders  Off 
for  San  Francisco."  As  one  of  my  colleagues  re- 


130  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ported,  "There  exists  in  Utah  an  organisation  which, 
in  my  opinion,  has  no  superior,  and  possibly  few 
equals,  in  this  country.  It  is  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses the  organisation  of  the  Mormon  Church  con- 
verted into  a  war  machine.  It  reaches  each  individual 
searchingly  and  unerringly." 

As  already  intimated,  the  "Gentiles"  of  Utah  do 
not  permit  themselves  to  be  outdone  by  their  Mormon 
neighbours.  Governor  Bamberger,  a  Jew,  has  ap- 
pointed a  State  Council  devoid  of  politics,  in  which 
representatives  of  all  religions  and  interests  work  for 
the  winning  of  the  War. 

Governor  Bamberger  showed  me  in  his  magnificent 
new  State  House  two  paintings  illustrative  of  the 
unique  copper  mines  at  Bingham,  thirty  miles  away. 
These  pictures  look  like  the  product  of  pure  fancy, 
but  depict  actual  fact.  A  great  conical  hill  fairly  sat- 
urated and  choked  with  copper  ore  is  seamed  trans- 
versely from  apex  to  base  with  road-like  gashes 
swarming  with  labourers  who  are  literally  razing  this 
mountain  to  the  ground  in  quest  of  its  treasure. 
Twenty-five  thousand  tons  of  copper  ore  are  taken  out 
every  day  of  the  week,  including  Sunday. 

The  State  is  also  rich  in  coal  deposits  of  a  very 
unusual  character.  They  crop  out  at  the  mouth  of 
canyons  on  a  level  with  the  terrain  and  are  mined  by 
digging  horizontally  into  the  canyons  instead  of  by 
the  usual  method  of  vertical  shafts.  Accessibility  is 
thus  their  strong  point. 

We  found  a  Hebrew  Governor  in  Idaho,  as  well  as 
in  Utah,  and  were  told  that  the  same  reason  prevailed 


"OUT  WEST"  131 

m  each  case.  The  large  Mormon  population  of  Idaho, 
as  in  Utah,  cast  their  votes  for  a  Jew  in  preference 
to  a  Gentile  Governor,  and  so  Moses  Alexander 
governs  Idaho. 

On  my  first  visit  to  Idaho  (in  September,  1917) 
the  women  were  doing  most  of  the  war  work.  One 
of  them,  a  Mormon  ranchwoman  far  out  in  the  coun- 
try, near  Rexburg,  had  just  sent  in  a  noteworthy  letter 
to  the  women's  headquarters  at  Boise. 

"Our  work,"  she  wrote,  in  apologising  for  a  slight 
delay  in  correspondence,  "has  kept  me  rustling.  We 
gave  our  boys  lovely  leather  bound  testaments  yester- 
day from  the  Council  of  Defense  and  from  the  appre- 
ciative thanks  and  expressions  of  their  faces  I  feel 
sure  they  are  appreciated.  Our  Council  had  three 
cars  in  the  parade.  Our  first  car  with  officers  was  a 
large  car  and  had  a  banner  of  our  President's  picture 
carried  in  front.  Then  banners  with  the  committee's 
full  name.  The  next  car  carried  Hoover's  picture  and 
a  banner  on  one  side,  'Save  &  Serve  with  Hoover/ 
on  the  other  side  'Sign  Your  Pledge  Cards  At  Once.' 
On  the  other  car  'Save  the  Food  for  Our  Boys.' 
Needless  to  say  the  cars  were  beautiful  in  Red,  White 
&  Blue.  Our  floral  decorations  in  the  tabernacle  were 
fittingly  arranged  in  Red,  White  &  Blue  order  and 
a  bouquet  given  each  boy.  The  Red  Cross  was  well 
represented.  We  had  seats  on  the  platform  for  our 
Council  of  Defense  and  as  each  member  wore  a  W.  C. 
C.  N.  D.  badge  on  arm  we  were  a  pretty  strong  body 
of  63.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  represent  such 
a  strong  body  of  women  and  a  still  greater  pleasure 


132  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

to  be  able  or  rather  to  have  the  privilege  of  making 
the  presentation  speech.  For  I  feel  no  dearer  mes- 
sage can  be  given  our  American  boys  than  the  New 
Testament.  107  autos  in  the  parade.  After  our  boys 
were  photographed  on  the  steps  of  the  tabernacle  I  had 
the  extreme  honour  of  supporting  the  American  flag 
at  the  opposite  end  of  Uncle  Sam,  which  it  happened 
was  my  husband  whose  name  is  Sam  and  is  called 
Uncle  Sam  from  one  end  of  the  country  in  State  of 
Idaho  to  the  other  end  of  Utah.  Several  good  speak- 
ers spoke  during  the  programme  and  some  very  ex- 
cellent music  was  furnished  besides  two  rousing  songs 
by  the  band  and  audience.  Taking  all  in  all  we  had 
a  very  successful  day  of  it.  The  Commercial  Club 
and  those  in  charge  showed  us  every  courtesy  and  gave 
us  many  privileges  which  surely  made  me  feel  our 
work  was  becoming  known  and  appreciated.  I  really 
believe  our  success  lays  in  my  motto,  which  I  secretly 
adopted  at  first  but  which  leaked  out  and  the  members 
had  done  in  Red,  White  &  Blue  and  which  graced  one 
of  our  cars.  It  is,  'Nothing  Too  Big  to  Accomplish 
for  our  Nation/  I  never  hesitate  to  go  after  any- 
thing I  want  for  our  Council  as  I  always  feel  it  is  for 
our  Nation." 

The  nimble-witted  women  of  Idaho  saved  a  huge 
cherry  crop  last  summer.  Going  to  the  commandant 
of  a  great  cantonment,  they  asked  for  an  afternoon's 
loan  of  his  soldiers;  and  the  commandant,  on  learn- 
ing the  cause  of  the  request,  quickly  granted  it.  Lead- 
ing the  soldiers  out  to  the  cherry  trees,  which  the 
labour  shortage  had  left  heavy  with  an  unusually  pro- 


"OUT  WEST"  133 

lific  harvest,  the  ladies  bade  the  soldiers  to  climb  up  the 
trees  and  be  fruitful.  Then  the  women  took  the 
cherries  home  and  canned  and  dried  them,  and  be- 
stowed the  fruits  of  this  co-operative  labour  on  the 
cantonment,  with  the  result  that  the  monotony  of  camp 
diet  was  relieved,  and  thousands  of  gallons  of  cherries 
were  saved  that  would  otherwise  have  rotted  on  the 
trees. 

My  task  on  first  visiting  Idaho  (in  September, 
1917)  was  to  effect  a  reorganisation  of  the  Council. 
As  this  experience  proved  to  be  typical  and  exemplary, 
I  give  below  the  Boise  Statesman's  account  of  the 
meeting  called  by  Governor  Alexander  for  a  confer- 
ence. It  had  to  be  summoned  on  short  notice,  since 
I  could  spend  but  two  days  in  Boise,  and  the  Governor 
therefore  assembled  only  such  members  of  his  "official 
family"  as  were  available.  Supreme  Court  Justices 
Budge,  Rice,  and  Morgan,  were  in  attendance,  as  were 
Dr.  Enoch  A.  Bryan  (afterwards  made  chairman 
of  the  Council),  John  W.  Eagleson,  Insurance  Com- 
missioner Hyatt,  I.  A.  Smoot,  Dr.  E.  T.  Biwer,  A.  L. 
Freehafter,  Harvey  Allred,  Ford  C.  Cliff,  Adjutant 
General  Moody,  Attorney  General  Walters,  Secretary 
of  State  Dougherty,  State  Auditor  Van  Deusen  and 
State  Leader  of  County  Agents  Hochbaum. 

"Dr.  Scherer's  recommendations  to  the  State  of 
Idaho  were  as  follows: 

"  'Representing  as  I  do  the  Council  of  National 
Defense,  I  am  able  merely  to  make  suggestions,  based 
upon  our  function  as  a  sort  of  a  clearing-house  for 
the  activities  of  State  Councils  all  over  the  Union. 


134  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"  The  first  item  that  strikes  my  attention  is  the 
comparatively  small  number  of  your  Council,  which  I 
think  might  well  be  enlarged.  California,  for  exam- 
ple, has  33  members,  and  a  Council  of  this  size  is  by 
no  means  uncommon. 

'  'Governor  Alexander  has  already  shown  his  wis- 
dom in  making  non-partisan  selections,  and  this  prin- 
ciple in  the  suggested  enlargement  of  the  Council  is 
quite  fundamental.  The  Nation  is  at  war,  and  politi- 
cal considerations  must  entirely  be  sunk  in  the  ideal 
of  a  common,  unified  service. 

'  'Should  the  Council  be  extended,  it  should  con- 
tinue to  be  broadly  representative  of  all  sections  and 
interests  of  the  State ;  comprising  the  ablest  men  pro- 
curable, who  will  give  their  time  and  thought  to  mo- 
bilising the  resources  of  this  great  State  in  so  far  as 
these  have  national  value  with  reference  to  the  prose- 
cution of  the  War. 

'  'Should  the  Council  be  enlarged,  as  suggested,  I 
would  further  recommend  an  executive  committee  of 
five,  the  chairman  of  the  Council  being  ex-officio  chair- 
man of  the  executive  committee. 

s  'These  men  should  live  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Boise,  so  that  all  of  them  can  attend  weekly  meetings 
to  go  over  with  the  chairman  important  matters  that 
will  be  sure  to  require  constant  and  careful  attention. 
"  'I  think  it  desirable  that  a  majority  of  the  Council 
itself  should  be  within  easy  reach  of  Boise,  so  as  to 
secure  quorums  when  special  meetings  of  the  full 
Council  are  called. 

'  'Either  the  executive  committee  or  a  special  com- 
mittee (of  say  three)  on  rules  should  report  to  an 
early  meeting  of  the  re-organised  Council  a  brief  and 
simple  plan  of  government  or  set  of  by-laws.  This 
plan  should  be  as  little  cumbersome  as  possible,  but 
should  name  the  quorum  for  council  meetings,  which 


"OUT  WEST"  135 

should  be  a  small  number ;  should  define  the  functions 
of  the  executive  committee  and  its  relation  to  the 
Council  very  clearly;  and  should  state  the  frequency 
of  the  Council  meetings,  together  with  any  other  mat- 
ters requiring  formulation  in  rules. 

"  'In  visiting  Missouri,  I  was  ^particularly  struck 
with  the  value  of  what  might  be  "called  a  peripatetic 
plan  of  Council  meetings.  The  Missouri  council  goes 
about  through  the  State,  meeting  now  at  Sedalia,  again 
at  Joplin,  and  still  again  at  Springfield  or  Jefferson 
City;  always  with  an  open  meeting  at  night  (char- 
acterised frequently  by  a  simple  public  dinner)  at 
which  two  or  three  stirring  speeches  are  made  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Council  or  invited  guests.  In  this  way  not 
only  do  members  of  the  Council  become  familiar  at 
first  hand  with  conditions  throughout  the  entire  State, 
but  each  community  where  this  body  assembles  finds 
itself  greatly  stimulated  to  a  more  intelligent  patriotism 
by  virtue  of  the  impress  left  by  the  Council  on  the 
people  who  attend  the  public  meetings. 

'  'My  own  judgment  is  that  money  could  hardly  be 
better  spent  than  in  paying  the  necessary  expenses 
incidental  to  those  peripatetic  assemblies. 

'  'It  is  of  crucial  importance  that  a  good  chairman 
be  named  to  succeed  Harry  L.  Day,  resigned.  Ex- 
perience of  other  States  leads  me  to  believe,  other 
things  being  anywise  nearly  equal,  that  the  chairman 
should  live  in  or  near  the  capital.  He  should  have 
abundant  energy,  he  should  have  the  capacity  to 
familiarise  himself  thoroughly  with  the  work  of  the 
more  advanced  State  Councils,  he  should  be  a  good 
speaker,  as  well  as  what  is  known  as  a  "good  mixer," 
and  should  be  able  to  go  into  all  parts  of  the  State 
with  the  object  of  awakening  the  people  to  the  tre- 
mendous importance  of  this  War  and  what  they  can 
do  toward  winning  it. 


136  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"  'The  scope  of  the  Council  will  develop  with  great 
rapidity  as  its  work  normally  proceeds.  We  will 
gladly  furnish  abstracts  of  plans  based  on  the  experi- 
ence of  the  most  vigourous  State  Councils,  such  as 
those  of  Connecticut,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  and 
Washington. 

"  'Glancing  only  at  those  resources  of  Idaho  which 
have  peculiar  reference  to  our  national  problems  as 
affected  by  the  War,  I  am  struck  at  once  by  your 
prominence  in  agriculture,  mining,  and  stockraising. 

"  Talouse  is  a  synonym  throughout  the  world  for 
pre-eminence  in  wheat  production,  while  the  apples, 
prunes,  and  cherries  of  Idaho  have  world-wide  fame. 

"  'The  Council  should  have  a  strong  committee  on 
agriculture  to  co-operate  with  the  food  administrator 
in  speeding-up  food  production  and  in  stimulating  a 
widespread  food  conservation.  I  have  been  already 
greatly  interested  to  learn  what  the  women  have  done 
in  conserving,  through  drying,  a  large  quantity  of 
cherries  that  would  otherwise  have  rotted  on  the  trees. 

"  'Since  wheat  is  to  be  a  factor  in  the  winning  of 
the  War,  and  since  the  education  of  our  own  people 
in  eating  perishable  food  will  mean  the  release  of  in- 
valuable equivalents  in  export  foodstuffs,  it  may  easily 
be  seen  that  excellent  as  work  already  done  in  Idaho 
has  been,  a  great  and  important  field  of  labour  awaits 
the  activities  of  a  committee  on  agriculture — or,  in- 
stead, of  two  committees,  one  on  food  production  and 
the  other  on  food  conservation. 

"  'Stockraising  has  a  direct  bearing  on  national  War 
problems,  both  because  of  food  values  involved  and 
also  because  of  Idaho's  production  of  wool,  which  is 
an  essential  element  in  clothing  and  is  therefore  sec- 
ond as  a  war  material  only  to  wheat  itself. 

"  'Overlooking  the  mine  products  of  Idaho  that  have 
no  direct  utility,  I  am  impressed  by  the  pre-eminence 


"OUT  WEST"  137 

of  Idaho  as  a  lead,  zinc,  and  silver  producing  State. 

"  The  report  of  your  State  inspector  of  mines  for 
1916  shows  an  output  of  366,594,000  pounds  of  lead, 
constituting,  I  believe,  about  30  per  cent  of  the  lead 
product  of  the  entire  world,  together  with  nearly 
100,000,000  pounds  of  zinc  and  more  than  12,000,000 
fine  ounces  of  silver — to  say  nothing  of  more  than 
8,000,000  pounds  of  copper  and  120,000  pounds  of 
tungsten,  all  having  immense  war  utility. 

"  'You  will  probably  wish  to  appoint  14  or  15  com- 
mittees in  all,  as  set  forth  in  the  abstracts  to  which  I 
have  alluded.  I  am  not  mentioning  in  this  report 
activities  common  to  most  of  the  State  Councils,  but 
merely  those  more  or  less  distinctive  of  Idaho,  so  as 
to  suggest  the  special  potentialities  of  a  Council  that 
can  render  great  service,  not  only  through  co-operation 
with  national  authorities,  but,  by  co-operating  with 
your  own  State  departments,  protecting  and  enhancing 
the  interests  of  Idaho  itself.'  " 

When  our  Washington  war  party  visited  the  Idaho 
War  Conference  in  May,  1918,  we  found  that  the 
State  had  transformed  itself  into  a  bee-hive  of  the  most 
effective  war  workers,  with  a  Council  of  Defense 
second  to  none  in  the  country.  But  of  course  they 
had  to  do  it  themselves.  I  cite  this  case  as  a  telling 
example  of  what  any  of  the  weaker  State  Councils 
can  do  by  way  of  reorganisation  if  only  they  make 
up  their  minds  to  it. 

Two  incidents,  one  collective  and  the  other  indi- 
vidual, carved  themselves  into  memory  during  this 
Idaho  Conference. 

The  local  "Knights  of  Columbus"  gave  Lieutenant 
Perigord  a  lunch  in  the  grill-room  of  the  Hotel 


138  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Owyhee.  Happening  to  glance  about  the  central 
round  table  at  which  I  was  seated  by  his  side,  I  could 
but  note  with  astonishment  the  entirely  accidental  ar- 
rangement of  seats. 

There  was  Perigord,  a  Frenchman,  and  brought  up 
as  a  Catholic,  the  guest  of  honour.  Sitting  peaceably 
at  his  side  was  myself,  brought  up  a  Lutheran,  of  Ger- 
man ancestry.  Next  to  me  was  a  Catholic  priest,  and 
next  to  him  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister.  Then 
came  the  Secretary  of  the  Idaho  Council  of  Defense, 
a  loyal  Mormon.  Presiding  over  the  feast  was  the 
Hebrew  Governor,  Moses  Alexander,  while  sitting 
between  him  and  Perigord  was  the  Catholic  Bishop  of 
the  diocese.  But  we  were  all  assembled  for  war  work, 
and  we  exemplified  what  is  happening  everywhere.  It 
is  a  time  to  sink  labels,  and  forget  factions,  as  we  toil 
in  a  great  common  cause. 

Idaho  is  broken  in  two  parts  by  high  mountain 
barriers  running  East  and  West.  The  only  way  to 
reach  the  large  Southern  section  from  the  small  min- 
ing region  of  the  North  is  either  to  go  around  through 
Montana  on  the  East  or  to  "sidle"  down  on  the  West 
through  the  States  of  Washington  and  Oregon  along 
the  banks  of  the  sinuous  Snake  River.  Yet  every 
county  in  the  State  was  well  represented  at  Boise, 
although  not  a  few  of  the  five  hundred  delegates  had 
to  travel  a  thousand  miles  to  make  the  trip. 

Among  these  delegates  from  Northern  Idaho  I  met 
a  man  whose  face  was  a  tragic  mask  of  grief.  I  had 
to  sit  opposite  to  him  one  morning,  and  it  was  all  I 


"OUT  WEST"  139 

could  do  to  keep  the  tears  back,  just  looking  at  the 
man,  with  his  tragic  mask  of  restrained  grief. 

He  was  as  rough  a  looking  man  as  you  will  meet 
in  a  month's  journey,  even  in  the  West.  His  boy, 
entering  the  war  before  America  did,  fell  at  Vimy 
Ridge,  and  now  the  father  carries  around  with  him  all 
the  time  a  letter,  into  which  is  written  down  the  num- 
ber that  marks  the  grave  of  his  boy,  "somewhere  in 
France."  He  has  never  shed  a  tear;  that  is  what 
makes  his  face  look  so  tragic,  perhaps.  He  says : 

"When  the  War  is  over,  I'm  going  'over  there.' 
When  I  find  his  grave,  I  reckon  I'll  lie  down  on  it 
and  unpack  my  heart,  but  I'm  not  going  to  cry  until 
then." 

I  remember  how  eager  and  alert  he  was  to  catch 
every  little  suggestion  that  was  uttered  during  that 
Conference.  He  said : 

"It  is  my  sole  business  until  this  War  is  won,  and 
won  right,  to  do  everything  that  I  can  to  keep  my 
boy  from  having  made  his  sacrifice  in  vain." 

I  join  up  with  this  man  in  my  memory  a  little 
woman  that  I  met  in  Montana,  at  Helena,  during  the 
War  Conference  there.  While  the  incident  was  fresh 
in  my  mind  I  wrote  of  it  in  a  letter  to  my  daughter, 
as  follows: 

"I  went  walking  just  now  in  this  altitudinous  town. 
Presently  on  a  rickety  retaining-wall  beside  the  side- 
walk I  saw  perched  a  very  grimy  little  girl — not  so 
grimy,  however,  but  that  a  rare  beauty  shone  through : 
blue  eyes,  golden  ringlets,  rosy  cheeks,  teeth  like  the 
little  white  grains  at  the  tip  of  a  roasting-ear.  'Mary' 


140  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

— I  guessed  her  name  the  first  time.  Then  toddled 
up  'Denny/  whose  really-truly  name  is  Virginia;  half 
as  old  as  four-year-old  Mary.  Then  marched  down 
from  the  back  yard  (it  was  all  back  yard)  Wilbur, 
aged  ten  or  so.  I  had  such  a  good  time  that  I  pressed 
a  dime  deep  into  each  grimy  palm,  suggesting — with  a 
question  mark — candy.  But  Mary  said  something 
that  I  ultimately  made  out  to  be  'doll-buggy.'  And  I 
came  away. 

"But  'doll-buggy'  haunted  me.  She  said  it  with 
such  automatic  glibness  that  I  felt  she  must  have  been 
saying  it  often  a  very  long  time.  And  I  remember 
how  much  such  things  mean  to  children.  So  I  went 
back  and  found  Wilbur  and  asked  for  his  mother. 
She  came  out  of  the  cracked  little  red  house ;  from  her 
work,  looking  simple  and  plain  and  sweet  and  sound. 
Mary  soon  came  too.  But  I  heard  Denny  crying,  and 
asked,  Why? 

"  'Because  I  took  their  money  away,'  said  naughty 
Mother. 

"And  I  asked,  'Why,'  again — 'Opposed  to  candy?' 

"  'No,  but  to  buy  thrift  stamps  with!' 

"Now,  the  point  is,  she  dearly  wanted  them  to  have 
the  candy.  I  finally  prevailed  on  her  to  take  the  dol- 
lar for  the  doll-buggy  by  ordering  her,  as  'one  of  Uncle 
Sam's  men,'  to  do  so,  and  then  the  tears  came  to  her 
eyes  as  she  said  Mary  had  been  begging  for  a  doll- 
buggy  for  a  year  but  they  couldn't  get  one  for  her. 
And  they  got  back  their  dime  apiece  when  I  promised 
to  see  that  thrift  stamps  should  not  go  begging. 

"Pennies  are  as  precious  to  that  family  as  bonds  are 


"OUT  WEST"  141 

to  many  people;  yet  every  penny  they  can  save  is 
going  to  the  War,  and  they're  teaching  Wilbur  and 
Mary  and  Denny  the  same  lesson.  That's  morale. 
And  Kaiserism  will  be  spurlos  versenkt,  sunk  without 
leaving  a  trace." 

Now  that  the  spirit  which  dominates  that  Montana 
woman  and  animates  that  Idaho  miner  is  taking  pos- 
session of  the  entire  country,  there  is  a  sharp  point  to 
our  soldiers'  satirical  refrain,  "God  help  Kaiser  Bill !" 

Oregon  needs  to  reorganise  itself,  as  Idaho  has 
done.  The  people  are  as  loyal  there  as  people  anyr 
where,  but  the  State  Council  is  a  group  of  eight  very 
delightful  gentlemen  whose  chief  object  seems  to  be 
to  "boost  Portland" — the  Atlanta  of  the  Pacific  coast. 

I  will  close  this  lengthy  narrative  of  the  Western 
War  Conferences  with  extracts  from  the  report  I 
made  on  the  States  of  Washington  and  Montana  on 
getting  back  to  the  office  in  June,  1918,  as  follows: 

The  State  Council  of  Washington  is  maintaining  the 
high  standard  indicated  in  the  lengthy  report  I  pre- 
sented after  my  visit  to  Washington  last  September. 
This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  our  afternoon  meeting 
at  Seattle,  which  was  to  have  been  held  May  24,  had 
to  be  abandoned.  Paradoxically  enough,  this  incident 
itself  is  a  proof  of  the  good  organisation  of  Washing- 
ton. The  Red  Cross  "drive"  was  on,  full  force,  and 
the  thousand  workers  directed  by  the  State  Council 
of  Defense  were  giving  such  devoted  attention  to  this 
drive  that  they  could  not  be  assembled  for  the  after- 
noon conference.  On  the  following  day  a  good  at- 
tendance was  secured  for  the  organisation  meeting 


142  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

of  the  Conference,  which  can  be  pronounced  a  success. 

Conditions  were  different  in  Spokane,  where  the 
Red  Cross  people  terminated  their  "drive"  a  day  ahead 
of  time  so  as  to  make  way  for  the  Conference.  Both 
the  day  session  and  the  night  meeting  were  a  pro- 
nounced success  in  Spokane. 

The  most  interesting  change  in  Washington  since 
my  visit  last  autumn  is  concerned  with  the  I.  W.  W. 
The  pernicious  activities  of  this  organisation  have 
almost  entirely  disappeared.  This  I  attribute  chiefly 
to  the  remarkably  wise  methods  adopted  by  the  State 
Council,  as  indicated  by  my  former  report.  "Con- 
trolled publicity"  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  im- 
provement. The  State  Council  succeeded,  after  much 
difficulty,  in  getting  all  the  newspapers  to  squeeze  down 
their  I.  W.  W.  headlines  and  news  items  to  a  mini- 
mum, as  it  is  a  noted  fact  that  this  organisation  bat- 
tens on  publicity,  its  leaders  exhibiting  to  their  would- 
be  dupes  "scare"  headlines  and  newspaper  articles  in 
proof  of  the  power  wielded  by  the  organisation  over 
the  capitalistic  classes. 

The  University  of  Washington  affords  a  fine  ex- 
ample of  the  manner  in  which  State  Universities 
should  serve  the  public  during  war  time.  Through 
the  magnificent  leadership  of  Dr.  Suzzallo,  who  is 
president  of  the  University  as  well  as  chairman  of 
the  State  Council  of  Defense,  the  people  of  Wash- 
ington have  been  led  to  understand  that  such  subjects 
as  economics  have  a  value  that  is  utilitarian  as  well  as 
academic.  To  such  a  degree  is  this  true  that  now 
when  a  misunderstanding  or  dispute  arises  between 


"OUT  WEST"  143 

different  interests  in  the  State,  the  University  author- 
ities are  invariably  called  upon  to  collect  the  facts  as  a 
basis  for  judgment;  it  being  known  that  all  the  facts 
will  be  scientifically  collected  and  impartially  pre- 
sented. Adjudication  is  then  made  by  proper  tribunal 
without  danger  of  a  subsequent  complaint  being  lodged 
of  judgment  based  on  insufficient  or  incomplete  evi- 
dence. 

The  University  requires  all  of  its  students  to  do  war 
work.  An  interesting  example  of  this  is  found  in  the 
treatment  of  sphagnum  moss,  to  which  all  of  the 
women  students  are  required  to  give  two  hours  weekly- 
The  sea  bogs  abounding  on  the  shores  of  Washington 
and  Oregon  furnish  vast  quantities  of  sphagnum  moss, 
which  is  an  excellent  substitute  for  cotton  in  the  irriga- 
tion of  heavy  wounds. 

Instead  of  absorbing  water  between  the  filaments, 
as  is  the  case  with  cotton,  sphagnum  moss  sucks  it  up 
by  a  ciliary  process  and  holds  it  in  tiny  cups  that  cover 
the  little  fronds  that  circle  around  the  stem. 

I  was  surprised  to  find  that  here  in  Washington 
City  Red  Cross  workers  are  already  handling  sphag- 
num moss.  Its  value  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  raw  cotton  is  now  bringing  about  3Oc  a  pound, 
whereas  sphagnum  moss  may  be  had  for  the  gathering. 
Not  only  so,  but  by  the  time  cotton  has  been  made  into 
material  for  dressing,  its  original  cost  is  doubled; 
whereas  sphagnum  moss  requires  only  to  be  picked 
free  of  mineral  adhesions  and  then  thoroughly  dried, 
which  are  the  processes  practiced  by  the  "co-eds"  in 
the  University  at  Seattle.  The  moss  actually  posses- 


144  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ses  superiority  over  cotton  as  a  dressing  in  that  it  is 
lighter,  bulkier,  and  not  so  likely  to  cake.  It  has  very 
high  absorption  powers  and  does  not  have  to  be 
changed  as  often  as  cotton  dressings. 

Jumping  to  another  valuable  activity  of  the  Wash- 
ington State  Council,  let  me  mention  the  organisation 
of  the  Loyalty  League  of  Loggers  and  Lumbermen  in 
the  forests.  When  Captain  Disque  was  leaving  for 
the  lumber  camps  of  Washington  last  fall,  I  gave  him 
a  letter  to  Dr.  Suzzallo  which  has  brought  about 
co-operation  between  the  federal  authorities  and  the 
State  Council  of  Defense.  By  means  of  this  co-opera- 
tion the  Loyalty  League  has  almost  completely  eradi- 
cated the  disloyalty  which  affected  the  lumber  output 
of  the  far  Northwest  so  disastrously  for  a  season. 
Disque  deserves  great  credit  for  the  manner  in  which 
he  has  dealt  with  his  men.  In  a  camp  formerly  no- 
torious for  recalcitrancy  fifty-five  out  of  fifty-seven 
lumber-jacks  have  voluntarily  enrolled  in  this  League 
and  invested  in  Government  savings.  Members  of 
the  League  make  it  very. uncomfortable  for  newcomers 
lacking  in  patriotism. 

Officials  of  the  Washington  State  Council  assured 
me  that  when  they  can  get  federal  support  for  some 
important  local  movement  their  authority  and  influence 
are  increased  at  least  one  hundred  per  cent.  They 
attribute  very  great  value  to  positive  pronouncements 
recently  issued  by  the  State  Councils  Section.  While 
I  was  there  a  happy  illustration  occurred.  The  State 
Council  had  been  bothered  by  the  "business  as  usual" 
campaign,  which  reaches  its  extreme  in  syndicated 


"OUT  WEST"  14* 

articles  prepared  for  newspapers  by  one  H.  W.  J. 
Taylor  of  the  Retail  Credit  Men's  Association.  The 
State  Council  of  Washington  had  encountered  great 
opposition  in  its  campaign  for  economy  until  our 
Bulletin  No.  94  was  received.  After  this  it  was  all 
easy  sailing. 

Montana  possesses  a  vital  spirit  of  patriotism  that 
I  have  not  found  excelled  anywhere.  Governor 
Stewart  is  one  of  the  best  War  governors  in  the  coun- 
try. Had  it  not  been  for  his  deliberate,  just,  but  firm 
handling  of  the  I.  W.  W.  situation  in  Montana,  grave 
disasters  would  almost  certainly  have  occurred  instead 
of  the  virtual  disappearance  of  the  trouble.  As  in 
Idaho,  so  in  Montana  there  was  a  State-wide  repre- 
sentation of  county  delegates  at  the  War  Conference, 
notwithstanding  extreme  difficulties  in  transportation 
in  this  the  third  largest  state  in  the  Union. 

The  mass  meeting  at  Helena  was  one  of  the  five 
best  of  the  entire  trip — the  others  being  the  meetings 
at  Sacramento,  Boise,  and  Reno,  in  the  order  named, 
Helena  ranking  with  Sacramento  at  the  very  top. 

It  was  not  "down  on  the  programme"  that  we 
should  speak  at  Butte,  but  Perigord  and  I  did  so  never- 
theless— addressing  a  great  mass  meeting  of  miners 
in  the  public  square  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  of 
May  29.  In  my  judgment  this  unexpected  meeting 
was  the  most  important  on  the  entire  journey.  Butte 
is  more  Irish  than  Ireland,  and  is  a  hot-bed  of  Sinn 
Fein  activity.  Perigord  with  perfect  bravery  attacked 
Sinn  Fein  activity.  Irish  miners  admire  clean  grit 
and  furthermore  pay  high  reverence  to  the  Catholic 


146  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

priesthood.  They  were  too  overcome  by  emotion  for 
immediate  response,  but  later  waited  on  Perigord  at 
the  hotel  in  a  delegation  and  thanked  him  for  having 
"roasted"  them.  After  his  very  remarkable  address  I 
heard  comments  freely  expressed  in  the  crowd  to  the 
effect  that  there  would  be  fewer  labour  troubles  in 
Butte  hereafter. 

Butte  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  places  on  top 
of  the  earth,  and  is  absolutely  unique.  It  is  a  huge 
hill  crammed  full  of  precious  minerals.  When  min- 
ing was  begun  there  it  was  expected  that  the  rich  yield 
would  be  only  temporary.  The  miners  had  to  live, 
however,  so  "shacks"  were  built  on  the  hill  for  their 
accommodation.  The  deeper  the  mines  have  sunk  and 
the  more  extensively  they  have  ramified  the  richer  has 
been  the  yield,  which  is  to-day  at  the  richest  point  in 
its  history.  The  Butte  mines  yield  an  average  of 
300,000,000  pounds  of  copper  annually,  besides  hous- 
ing the  richest  silver  deposits  in  the  world,  so  far  as 
known,  together  with  great  quantities  of  gold.  As 
the  yield  has  continued,  more  miners'  houses  have  been 
built  upon  the  hill,  until  now  a  city  of  more  than  ninety 
thousand  people  covers  this  great  ant-hill  of  activity, 
which  is  so  honeycombed  with  mines  that  it  is  possible 
to  traverse  the  entire  hill  from  one  end  to  the  other 
underground. 

The  smelting  which  was  formerly  done  in  Butte 
itself,  but  is  now  carried  on  at  the  town  of  Anaconda, 
about  a  dozen  miles  away,  destroyed  with  its  fumes 
all  vegetation,  including  the  trees  on  the  mountains 
'round  about.  This  brown  and  denuded  aspect  of 


"OUT  WEST"  147 

death  adds  weirdly  to  the  general  impression  as  one 
stands  on  the  height  of  the  hill,  which,  in  the  very 
thick  of  this  mushroom  city,  prickles  with  the  derricks 
of  the  mines  like  some  huge  industrial  pin-cushion. 
Far-off,  seen  through  an  ever-present  haze,  are  huge 
snow-covered  mountains,  the  very  snow  of  which 
seems  contaminated  by  the  atmosphere  of  Butte,  which 
is  so  ugly  that  it  is  positively  fascinating. 

I  had  resolved  to  see  Butte  even  before  it  became 
my  duty  to  go  there.  Somewhat  puzzled  by  this  de- 
sire, I  had  asked  a  "rough  diamond"  in  Idaho  the  chief 
characteristics  of  Butte.  After  scratching  his  head 
for  a  moment  he  said,  "Well,  Butte's  all  there  in  the 
day  time,  and  there  ain't  no  night  in  Butte."  This  I 
discovered  to  be  true  with  all  that  it  implies. 

The  I.  W.  W.  activities  were  so  effective  in  this 
greatest  of  mining  camps  last  year  as  to  impede  and 
almost  suspend  mining  operations.  This  is  most 
serious  when  it  is  remembered  that  every  ounce  of 
mineral  wealth  now  taken  out  of  the  mines  is  con- 
signed to  the  United  States  Government.  Montana 
has  so  managed  its  labour  troubles,  however,  that  the 
mines  are  now  running  full  blast.  The  minimum 
wage  is  $5.50  a  day,  while  the  average  wage  of  miners 
is  said  to  be  between  $9.00  and  $10.00.  A  miner  that 
I  talked  with  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  assured  me 
that  men  who  were  paid  from  $9.00  to  $10.00  gave 
far  greater  satisfaction  to  the  company  than  those 
who  used  to  get  lower  pay !  The  only  labour  disturb- 
ance "on"  in  Butte  when  we  were  there  was  a  little 
insignificant  strike  of  plasterers,  plumbers,  and  inside 


148  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

electricians — all  of  these  working  men  doing  a  thriv- 
ing business  in  building  more  houses  for  the  miners. 
Plasterers  who  received  $7.00  for  an  eight-hour  day 
were  striking  for  $8.00  and  a  seven-hour  day.  Plum- 
bers receiving  $8.00  for  an  eight-hour  day  were  de- 
manding $9.00  for  the  same  period,  while  the  elec- 
tricians for  the  same  period  were  receiving  $6.00  and 
demanding  $7.00.  But  this  is  a  mere  ripple  on  the 
laughing  surface  of  Butte  life,  and  is  probably  settled 
by  this  time. 

The  managers  of  the  mines  of  Butte  plume  them- 
selves on  the  patriotism  of  the  miners.  Four  com- 
panies (the  Anaconda,  the  Butte-Superior,  the  East 
Butte,  and  the  Davis-Daly  mines)  made  a  drive  for 
the  "War  Chest,"  spending  on  the  expense  of  the 
speakers,  etc.,  an  amount  equivalent  to  seventeen  cents 
a  ton  on  125,000  tons  of  ore — this  at  least  was  the 
Anaconda  figure;  with  the  result  that  98  per  cent  of 
the  miners  of  these  four  companies  subscribed  to  the 
War  Chest.  Certainly  the  meeting  I  addressed  with 
Perigord  gave  the  impression  of  a  deep  feeling  of  the 
real  spirit  of  the  War.  Butte  is  immensely  proud  of 
the  fact  that  John  D.  Ryan  has  come  here  to  manage 
the  aircraft  production  of  the  Government. 

This  unique  American  city  is  at  its  best  at  night, 
when  one  stands  on  the  observation  end  of  a  Pullman 
train  and  climbs  the  enormous  grade  leading  out  of 
purgatory  into  normal  American  territory.  The  huge 
ant-hill  is  then  all  aglow  with  the  most  brilliant  lights 
and  shimmers  in  the  increasing  distance  like  the  vast 
Koh-i-nor  that  it  is. 


"OUT  WEST" 

Speaking  of  lights  reminds  me  of  the  huge  search- 
light built  on  the  top  of  a  vast  ash-heap  that  crowns 
the  summit  of  the  much  vaster  hill  that  is  Butte.  Per- 
haps this  is  the  final  touch  with  which  to  leave  the 
story.  One  sees  it  in  the  day-time,  sinister,  expressive 
of  the  industrial  volcano  from  which  eruption  may  be 
expected  at  any  moment;  for  the  purpose  of  this 
search-light,  which  is  used  frequently,  is  to  sweep 
every  nook  and  corner  of  Butte  with  its  rays  through- 
out the  long  working  hours  of  the  night  in  quest  of 
skulking  dynamiters  bent  on  destruction.  In  fact,  I 
must  add  to  this  the  weird  effect  I  got  from  a  peculiar- 
ly saccharine  smell  that  suddenly  came  on  us  very 
strongly  in  the  bowels  of  the  Leonard  mine.  It  was 
so  cunous  that  I  prevailed  upon  the  reluctant  super- 
intendent (who  accompanied  us)  to  tell  the  cause.  It 
was  fire,  which  has  been  burning  underground  for 
many  months;  and  the  singularly  sweet  smell  is  due 
to  its  consumption  of  precious  ores.  The  big  picks 
of  our  miners  were  driving  very  close  to  it,  at  immi- 
nent peril,  in  the  desire  to  cheat  the  fire  of  its  prey; 
and  we  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  when  we  stood  once 
more  on  what  Mrs.  Partington  would  call  terra  cotta. 

If  some  German  spy  had  criss-crossed  the  country 
with  me,  he  would  have  found  the  planters  of  Louis- 
iana concerned  about  their  sugar  crop,  not  for  what 
they  can  make  out  of  it,  but  for  what  they  can  do 
with  it  in  feeding  our  boys  and  our  Allies.  At  the 
opposite  corner  of  the  country  he  would  find  the  lum- 
ber men  of  Washington  and  Oregon  concerned  about 


150  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

not  what  they  can  get  out  of  their  lumber,  but  how 
they  can  get  the  spruce  out  of  the  forests  to  help  Uncle 
Sam  build  his  airships.  All  through  the  country  he 
would  find  the  people  determined  to  support  Woodrow 
Wilson  and  Charles  Evans  Hughes  in  their  endeavour 
to  "get"  the  men  who  have  hindered  our  aircraft  build- 
ing programme,  if  such  there  be.  Further,  in  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  he  would  find  the  great  men 
of  those  States  giving  practically  all  of  their  time  to 
the  War  organisation  of  the  country ;  building  up,  for 
example,  a  great  war  employment  service  that  will  en- 
able New  England  to  handle  its  labour  supply  effective- 
ly by  distributing  labour,  with  labour's  free  consent, 
from  the  points  of  surplus  supply  to  the  points  of  the 
greatest  need.  Crossing  the  country  through  the  great 
Northwest  and  dropping  down  with  me  into  the  ex- 
pansive grain  fields  of  the  Central  West,  he  would  find 
the  farmers  concerned  in  speeding-up  food  production, 
just  as  loyal  business  men  and  labourers  are  speeding- 
up  ship  production  along  the  Pacific  Coast  in  huge 
plants  that  have  sprung  up,  as  it  were,  over  night. 
Then,  were  he  truthful,  he  would  write  a  letter  like 
this  to  his  Kaiser : 

"May  it  please  your  Majesty,  these  Yankees  are  a 
strange  folk.  They  are  the  most  peaceful  people  in 
the  world,  and  the  most  foolishly  patient;  but  they 
possess  the  traditional  anger  of  the  patient  man,  when 
fully  roused.  For  two  and  a  half  years  they  looked 
on  at  the  great  conflagration  in  Europe  with  their 
hands  in  their  pockets,  and  never  even  bought  a  water 
bucket  for  protection.  But  now,  the  flame  of  prac- 


"OUT  WEST"  151 

tical  patriotism  is  sweeping  the  country  like  a  prairie 
fire,  and  God  help  you,  Kaiser  Bill,  when  this  backfire 
meets  the  flame  of  your  war !  Their  waiting  will  un- 
doubtedly mean  waste  to  them — waste  in  treasure  and 
in  precious  human  life;  but  their  resources  are  inex- 
haustible, and  they  are  at  last  'mad  clean  through/ 
and  resolved  to  give  short  shrift  to  any  movement,  no 
matter  who  leads  it,  for  an  inconclusive  peace.  If 
you  take  my  advice,  Your  Majesty,  you  and  your 
family  will  clear  out  before  you  get  cleaned  out;  leav- 
ing as  a  last  bequest  to  your  people,  in  a  final  effort 
to  repair  irreparable  wrong,  an  urgent  plea  that  they 
establish  a  fair  and  just  government  whose  first  act 
shall  be  to  disarm,  simultaneously  with  withdrawal 
from  invaded  lands  and  repayment  for  devastation 
and  destruction.  I  have  been  on  a  swing  around  the 
circle,  Your  Majesty — as  these  picturesque  Yankees 
describe  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Uncle  Sam 
has  got  his  jaw  set,  as  they  say.  The  same  blood  that 
fought  England  twice,  and  won,  still  courses  through 
his  mighty  heart  and  veins.  Remember  his  own  Civil 
War,  how  fiercely  and  gallantly  his  children  fought 
on  both  sides  of  the  house  now  united;  take  it  from 
me,  Your  Majesty,  that  the  long  lines  of  the  blue  and 
the  grey  are  completely  melted  in  a  far  longer  line  clad 
in  khaki;  and  that  even  if  you  break  the  French  and 
British  lines  in  France  and  Flanders,  you  must  face 
an  unflinching  and  unconquerable  America!" 


CHAPTER  X 

ZIGZAG   JOURNEYS 

MISSOURI  was  one  of  the  first  States  "to  be 
shown"  the  value  of  organised  patriotism  by  means  of 
its  State  Council  of  Defense,  which  has  become  a 
model  to  its  neighbours.  Late  in  August,  1917,  I 
attended  one  of  the  peripatetic  meetings  of  this  Coun- 
cil, held  at  Springfield,  in  the  Ozark  Mountains.  We 
had  a  touch  of  welcome  winter  weather,  I  remember, 
and  sat  around  a  roaring  wood  fire. 

One  of  the  first  contributions  of  Missouri  to  war 
work  was  the  stimulation  of  food  production.  As  a 
consequence  of  her  first  year's  effort  she  increased 
food  production  ten  per  cent,  and  put  750,000  acres 
into  corn  that  had  never  been  put  to  any  crop  before. 

This  question  of  corn  is  important.  I  know  of 
an  old  lady  out  West  who  has  even  been  complaining 
of  God  on  account  of  it.  "Here  I  am,"  she  says, 
"eighty-three  years  old,  and  He's  been  purty  good  to 
me  so  fur,  but  now  He's  gone  and  took  away  my  white 
bread.  I  don't  see  why  I  ain't  just  as  good  as  them 
Allies.  Why  should  we  have  to  put  up  with  corn 
bread  and  send  all  our  wheat  and  flour  over  there? 
Ain't  we  just  as  good  as  they  are?" 

Now,  for  my  part,  there  is  no  bread  quite  equal  to 
152 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  153 

a  good  old  Mississippi  "co'n  pone,"  especially  if  it  has 
a  few  "cracklin's"  sprinkled  through  it.  The  pro- 
gressive State  Council  of  Illinois  "demonstrates"  the 
proper  use  of  corn-meal  in  Chicago  by  means  of  a  num- 
ber of  colored  "mammies"  in  the  corner  stores — the 
demonstrations  being  made  complete  by  distributing 
sample  corn-meal  products,  together  with  the  recipes 
for  preparing  them.  For  those  whose  tastes  are  not 
properly  educated,  however,  it  needs  to  be  made  clear 
that  the  Government  is  not  calling  on  us  to  practise 
sacrifice  so  much  as  to  exercise  discrimination.  Here 
in  this  opulent  land  we  could  hardly  sacrifice  in  food- 
stuffs if  we  tried,  and  none  of  us  are  trying  very  hard. 
But  it  is  our  bounden  duty  to  discriminate.  The 
reason  we  are  asked  to  eat  more  corn  bread  so  as 
to  ship  more  wheat  is  that  we  can  ship  wheat  and 
flour  economically,  while  it  would  be  a  waste  to  at- 
tempt to  ship  corn.  Meal  spoils  when  exposed  to 
salt-water;  flour  doesn't.  Wheat  packs  compactly 
into  the  hold  of  a  ship;  corn  doesn't.  Even  if  we 
shipped  the  corn,  they  wouldn't  know  what  to  do  with 
it  "over  there."  All  through  the  New  Testament  you 
find  the  word  corn,  but  the  English  translators  did 
not  know  what  they  were  talking  about!  Whenever 
they  said  corn  they  meant  wheat.  When  an  English- 
man to-day  talks  about  corn,  he  calls  it  maize  or  Indian 
corn.  If  we  tried  to  educate  them  in  the  use  of  corn, 
we  should  have  to  send  machinery  for  grinding  it; 
and  we  haven't  any  business  to  be  sending  any  ma- 
chinery to  Europe  these  days,  except  machinery  to  kill 
Germans  with. 


154  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

So  it  is  all  along  the  line.  We  send  bacon  to  our 
boys  because  it  stands  shipment,  and  we  want  them 
to  save  their  bacon  and  to  come  home  with  the  bacon. 
So  with  beef.  But  you  can  be  patriotic  and  eat  all 
the  poultry  that  you  please.  Of  course,  you  must 
first  "catch  your  turkey" ;  which  reminds  me  of  Uncle 
Rastus,  of  whom  Booker  Washington  told  this  story : 

Uncle  Rastus  was  mighty  fond  of  turkey  for  Christ- 
mas. He  never  could  get  a  whole  turkey  of  his  own 
for  Christmas,  and  it  was  one  of  the  aspirations  of 
his  life  to  have  a  whole  turkey.  But  he  never  could 
get  one,  although,  being  religious,  he  prayed  very  hard 
for  one.  Finally  he  had  an  "illumination,"  as  he 
called  it. 

"I'll  tell  you  how  it  was,  Marse  Washin'ton.  I 
been  prayin'  every  yeah  fo'  a  turkey.  It's  true,  Marse 
Washin'ton,  dat  de  Missus  sen'  down  de  carcuss  from 
de  big  house  and  de  giblets,  but  it's  been  one  of  de 
movin'  aspirations  of  my  life  to  have  a  whole  turkey, 
and  I  ain't  never  got  no  turkey,  altho'  every  Christmas 
I  pray,  'Oh,  Lo'd,  send  dis  niggah  a  turkey ;  Oh,  Lo'd, 
send  dis  niggah  a  turkey.'  And 'I  ain't  never  got  no 
turkey.  But  dis  yeah  I  jes'  put  one  mo'  little  word  in 
there,  and  de  night  befo'  Christmas  eve  I  pray,  'Oh, 
Lo'd  send  dis  niggah  to  a  turkey,'  an'  I  got  a  turkey 
dat  same  night !" 

Our  amiable  Secretary  of  War  tells  us  that  we  are 
going  to  win,  because  it  is  irreligious  to  doubt  it,  and 
that  is  true;  but  we  American  people  must  continue 
to  add  works  to  our  faith,  until  we  put  every  last 
ounce  of  our  energy  into  intelligent  organized  effort. 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  155 

To  use  one  of  our  own  vivid  colloquialisms,  we  must 
go  to  it. 

Oliver  Cromwell  was  a  great  religious  soldier.  His 
motto  was,  "Trust  in  God,  and  keep  your  powder  dry." 
Assuredly  we  shall  trust  in  our  God — not  the  German 
tribal  deity  known  as  Gott,  but  that  Ancient  of  Days 
who  nurtured  our  Republic  in  its  infancy,  and  Who 
has  promised  His  blessing  to  that  Nation  whose  God 
is  the  Lord.  At  the  same  time  let  us  go  "to  the  help 
of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty"  in  this  crucial  hour  of 
struggle  between  right  and  wrong,  with  the  last  atom 
of  practical  resourcefulness  that  we  can  command. 

It  was  in  Indiana  that  George  Ade  contributed  an- 
other choice  African  story  to  my  collection.  This  was 
the  first  War  Conference  I  attended  (in  December, 
1917),  and  one  of  the  most  effective.  A  distinctive 
feature  was  the  editors'  lunch-party  on  the  second  day 
of  the  Conference,  attended  by  nearly  every  editor  in 
the  State,  regardless  of  politics, — with  which  this 
Indiana  atmosphere  seems  permanently  permeated. 
Will  Hays,  then  chairman  of  the  State  Council,  said 
in  his  speech  that  the  Republican  party  might  go  hang, 
so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  in  comparison  with  ef- 
fective war  work ;  and  Meredith  Nicholson,  an  ardent 
Democrat,  paid  Hays  a  warm  tribute  for  the  fearlessly 
impartial  manner  in  which  he  administered  the  Coun- 
cil.1 

1  Mr.  Nicholson's  remarks  were  as  follows:  "It  is  a  privilege 
as  it  is  a  pleasure  to  have  an  opportunity  to  testify  to  the 
intelligence  and  vigour  with  which  Governor  Goodrich  has  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  business  of  putting  Indiana  on  a  war 


156  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

George  Ade  gave  me  my  Negro  story  while  extri- 
cating himself  from  the  quandary  in  which  George 
Creel  had  placed  him.  Through  failure  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  to  deliver  Mr.  Creel  as  chief 
speaker,  Ade,  the  toastmaster,  with  a  pained  expres- 
sion and  a  diffident  manner,  narrated  Aunt  Dinah's 
account  of  a  wedding. 

"Well,  Dinah,  were  the  bridesmaids  pretty?"  asked 
her  mischievous  mistress  on  the  return  of  Aunt  Dinah 
to  her  tubs. 

"Law  sakes,  Missus,  dey  sho'  wuz.  One  of  'em 
had  on  a  green  polonaise,  and  de  othah,  she  woh  bobi- 
net." 

footing.  If  the  Council  of  Defense  of  this  loyal  commonwealth 
isn't  the  best,  the  most  energetic  and  enlightened  in  the  Union, 
I  should  like  to  hear  of  another  that  approaches  it  for  the 
character  and  range  of  its  work.  Every  citizen  of  this  state 
is  indebted  to  Mr.  Will  H.  Hays,  the  chairman  of  the  State 
Council,  for  the  zeal  and  effectiveness  with  which  he  has  or- 
ganised our  war  work,  and  for  the  great  patriotic  awakening 
of  our  people  to  which  he  has  contributed  in  so  great  meas- 
ure. As  a  Democrat  I  am  glad  to  express  my  appreciation  of 
what  the  Republican  state  administration  has  done,  and  what 
the  Republican  chairman  of  the  State  Council  is  doing  to 
mobilise  Indiana's  resources.  I'm  disposed  to  be  pretty  critical 
of  my  neighbours'  Americanism  in  these  times,  but  if  there's 
a  sounder  American  between  the  two  oceans  than  Bill  Hays  I 
confess  that  I  don't  know  where  to  lay  my  hand  on  him.  He's 
a  Republican,  but  first  of  all  he's  an  American  citizen.  He  has 
neglected  nothing  that  could  add  to  the  strength  of  Indiana's 
arm  or  to  the  realisation  by  all  her  people  that  this  is  our  war, 
a  war  for  the  defense  of  those  principles  of  freedom  and 
democracy  that  are  rooted  deep  in  the  Hoosier  earth  that  our 
fathers  won  for  us  and  fought  and  saved  under  the  leadership 
«f  Abraham  Lincoln." 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  157 

"And  how  about  the  bride?" 

"Law,  Missus,  you  sho'  sh'ud  ha'  seen  dat  bride. 
She  had  on  a  dress  o'  white  orangeade,  wid  lemon 
blossoms  droopin'  from  her  haih.  It  was  de  scrum- 
shionest  weddin'  dese  old  eyes  ebah  hab  seed!" 

"And  the  groom,  Aunt  Dinah;  how  did  the  bride- 
groom look?" 

"Law,  Missus!"  the  old  woman  screamed,  as  her 
fat  sides  shook  with  laughter,  "you  know  dat  fool  nig- 
gah  he  nebah  did  show  up  at  all?" 

I  purloined  the  original  autograph  copy  of  Ade's 
brief  address  to  his  editors,  and  write  it  down  here 
because  it  has  a  wide  application : 

"Gentlemen:  My  conception  of  a  brave  man  is 
one  who  will  tell  his  editor  how  to  run  his  paper.  I 
know  that  when  we  ran  off  the  weekly  edition  on  a 
Washington  hand-press  and  had  to  address  every 
single  wrap,  the  editor  was  close  to  the  carpet  most 
of  the  time  and  needed  the  money,  but  he  didn't  take 
orders  from  any  outsiders. 

"Later  on,  in  a  booming  metropolis  of  20,000,  with 
a  real  cylinder  press  and  boys'  carrying-routes,  when 
I  was  telegraph  editor,  proof-reader,  dramatic  editor, 
and  chief  editorial  writer,  I  came  to  know  that  a  real 
editor  is  one  who  knows  how  to  hit  the  waste-basket. 

"Then  I  went  to  a  larger  town  and  became  a  simple 
unit  in  a  gigantic  Sears-Roebuck  journalistic  organ- 
isation, the  editor  being  concealed  from  public  view, 
but  there  was  one  intangible  asset  in  which  all  of  us 
shared.  It  was  the  knowledge  that  our  paper  could 
not  be  bought  and  could  not  be  coerced. 

"You  have  been  invited  here  to-day,  editors  of  In- 
diana, by  men  who  know  something  about  the  news- 


158  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

paper  game  from  the  inside.  Let  my  first  assurance 
to  you  be  that  we  are  not  going  to  tell  you  what  to 
hang  on  your  copyhooks.  We  are  fellow  volunteers 
in  the  same  service.  You  and  we  are  trying  to  get 
to  the  people  the  information  that  will  reveal  to  them 
the  significance  of  this  war — the  inspiration  that  will 
keep  them  determined  to  win  the  war. 

"Your  desk  is  cluttered  with  hot  stuff  from  publicity 
bureaus.  Every  good  publicity  agent  thinks  his  own 
message  is  the  most  important  of  the  lot.  Such  simple 
tasks  as  conserving  foods,  saving  soft  corn,  selling 
Liberty  Bonds,  collecting  millions  for  the  Red  Cross 
and  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  punishing  the  traitors,  organising  the 
Home  Guard,  enlisting  Boys  for  the  Working  Re- 
serve, are  passed  along  to  the  editor  these  days  in 
the  serene  belief  that  his  patriotism  knows  no  bounds 
and  his  space  is  unlimited. 

"The  editors  of  Indiana  have  responded  like  good 
soldiers  but  even  a  good  soldier  can't  carry  a  kit  that 
weighs  a  ton.  The  editor  finds  it  impossible  to  sup- 
press local  news.  Children  will  be  born,  and  young 
people  will  get  married  and  old  settlers  will  pass  away, 
even  during  war  times. 

"The  problem  with  many  a  publisher  just  now  is — 
How  shall  I  do  my  full  duty  as  a  messenger  of  patriot- 
ism and  at  the  same  time  get  out  a  regular  newspaper  ? 

"The  Indiana  State  Council  of  Defense  has  made 
many  appeals  to  you  for  help  and  you  have  helped — 
generously,  unselfishly.  We  shall  be  compelled  to  ask 
more  favours  of  you,  not  for  ourselves  but  for  the  long 
campaign  to  which  all  of  us  are  now  committed.  We 
have  asked  you  to  come  here  to-day  not  that  we  may 
tell  you  what  to  print  in  your  papers,  but  that  you 
may  tell  us  how  we  can  be  of  intelligent  help  to  you. 

"  We  must  co-operate.  We  may  find  it  advisable  to 
agree  here  upon  some  definite  propaganda.  You 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  159 

know  the  temper  of  your  readers.  It  may  be  that  the 
bulletins  and  special  articles  we  have  sent  you  do  not 
always  appeal  to  your  editorial  judgment.  All  right ! 
Let  us  decide  what  kind  of  news  and  what  kind  of 
editorial  appeals  will  deserve  publication  and  get  to 
your  people  and  bring  the  results  for  which  we  are 
striving — an  intelligent  understanding  of  our  aims 
in  the  war,  an  unfailing  readiness  to  answer  every 
call  to  duty  and,  above  all,  a  rock-ribbed  and  unshake- 
able  determination  to  outgame  the  other  fellow  and 
see  this  war  through  to  a  creditable  finish." 

Illinois  held  its  first  War  Conference,  as  it  hap- 
pened, in  the  midst  of  the  bitterest  freeze  of  the  coldest 
of  winters,  but  the  delegates  somehow  managed  to  ar- 
rive, while  I  created  a  mild  sensation  by  appearing 
on  the  platform  just  at  the  moment  when  a  disgruntled 
chairman  was  announcing  that  I  was  snowed  up  some- 
where between  Kansas  City  and  Chicago. 

"Snowed  up"  we  certainly  had  been ;  and  that  night, 
attempting  to  get  out  of  Chicago,  a  crowd  of  us  stood 
around  in  the  filthiest  "union  station"  on  the  continent, 
waiting  from  nine  until  three  in  the  morning  for  the 
train  for  Louisville,  Kentucky.  This  appointment  I 
missed  altogether,  but  another  visit  to  Louisville  dem- 
onstrated what  excellent  work  was  being  done  in  the 
Blue  Grass  region.1  From  Louisville  I  went  to  West 
Virginia,  the  State  whose  Council  of  Defense  has  been 
endowed  with  larger  statutory  powers  than  any  other 
in  the  land;  and  found  energy  backing  intelligence. 
The  same  brief  report  may  be  made  of  flying  visits  to 

s  Perhaps  the  most  notable  thing  in  Kentucky  is  the  Moon- 
light Schools  for  drafted  illiterates. 


160  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Tennessee,1  Michigan,2  Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware.3 

The  Oklahoma  War  Conference  I  attended  with 
keen  curiosity,  since  for  some  reason  or  other  a  wide- 
spread impression  had  gone  abroad  that  Oklahoma 
was  lacking  in  loyalty.  My  experience  verified  that 
of  Secretary  Lane.  Said  he: 

"I  had  been  told  that  I  would  find  the  very  seat 
and  centre  of  hostility  to  the  Government  in  Okla- 
homa. I  went  there.  I  found  that  a  few  misled 
tenant-farmers  had  objected  to  the  draft.  When  I 
asked  the  reason,  they  said  that  New  York  had 
brought  on  the  war  and  New  York  should  make  the 
fight.  But  that  was  not  nearly  so  much  the  spirit  of 
Oklahoma  as  the  draft  riots  were  the  spirit  of  New 
York  in  1863. 

"After  a  meeting  in  Tulsa  a  man  came  to  me, 
dressed  in  a  blue  jumper  and  overalls,  and  said : 

"  'I  am  doing  my  bit.  I  have  six  children,  four 
boys  and  two  girls.  The  four  boys  are  in  the  army — 
and  the  two  girls  are  Red  Cross  nurses,  and  I  am  sav- 
ing to  buy  a  Liberty  Bond/ 

1  Tennessee  had  such  an  excellent  office  organisation,  under 
Major  Rutledge  Smith,  that  the  National  Council  impressed  his 
services  as  a  "zone  director"  for  certain  Southern  States,  just 
as  Mr.  J.  H.  Winterbotham,  Jr.,  of  Chicago,  looks  after  States 
of  the  Central  West. 

"Michigan's  most  noteworthy  recent  achievement  was  the 
holding  of  8,500  simultaneous  patriotic  meetings  in  the  schools 
(July  8,  1918)  while  school  officers  were  being  elected. 

'Delaware  was  late  in  getting  started,  but  the  War  Confer- 
ence held  at  Wilmington  in  July,  1918,  guaranteed  a  successful 
career. 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  161 

"That  does  not  look  like  slacking,  nor  do  Oklaho- 
ma's total  subscriptions  to  the  Liberty  Loan  bonds." 

Kansas  did  notable  work  in  the  stimulation  of  food 
production,  under  the  generalship  of  Dr.  H.  J.  Wat- 
ters.  One  gets  an  unpleasant  impression,  however, 
that  politics  is  mixed  up  with  the  Kansas  Council. 
Iowa,  a  little  slow  in  getting  started,  perhaps  is  just 
now  "striking  her  gait."  That  aged  and  indomitable 
"war  horse,"  Lafe  Young,  of  Des  Moines,  chairman 
of  the  Iowa  Council,  gave  me  these  slogans  for  slack- 
ers that  have  never  failed  to  elicit  approval  from  au- 
diences all  over  the  country : 

"Every  traitor  and  every  near-traitor  in  the  United 
States  is  inquiring,  'What  are  we  going  to  get  out  of 
this  War?' 

"Well,  among  other  things,  we  are  going  to  get 
a  better  grade  of  patriotism  than  we  have  been  hav- 
ing. 

"We  are  going  to  put  an  end  to  building  up  foreign 
colonies  in  the  United  States  as  breeding  places  of 
treason. 

"We  are  going  to  love  every  foreigner  who  really 
becomes  an  American,  and  all  others  we  are  going  to 
ship  back  home. 

"We  are  going  to  have  consultations  with  the  I. 
W.  W.'s  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  they  have  a  real 
grievance  or  any  just  cause  for  their  treasonable 
mouthings  and  threats.  If  they  have  any  just  cause, 
we  are  going  to  remove  it;  then  we  are  going  to  shut 
their  mouths  for  good  and  all. 

"Out  of  this  War  we  are  going  to  get  a  new  United 


162  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

States.  We  are  going  to  hate  nobody,  but  we  are 
going  to  be  prepared  to  fight  whenever  necessary. 

"There  are  a  good  many  other  things  we  are  going 
to  get  out  of  this  War.  When  the  soldier  boys  come 
home,  we  are  going  to  have  several  millions  of  patriots 
who,  having  fought  for  the  flag,  will  make  good  citi- 
zens and  thorough  patriots." 

Some  of  the  very  best  Councils,  such  as  those  of 
Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,1  it  was  not  my  good  for- 
tune to  visit.  But  I  must  not  close  this  chapter  with- 
out mentioning  certain  exemplary  undertakings  in 
some  of  these  States,  with  the  hope  that  other  States 
may  profit  by  them. 

Nothing  that  Wisconsin  has  done  is  of  more  value 
to  the  Nation  at  large  than  its  treatment  of  the  foreign 
language  press.  The  State  Council  publishes  a  series 
of  weekly  articles,  averaging  less  than  a  thousand 
words  each,  on  such  subjects  as  American  Ideals,  and 
Germany's  Responsibility  for  the  War.  Printed  in 
German  as  well  as  in  English,  these  are  offered  in 
"plate"  form  to  the  fifty  German-language  papers  in 
the  State,  and  have  been  regularly  published  by  all 
of  them. 

Recently,  for  example,  the  Germania  Herold,  the 
leading  German  newspaper  in  Wisconsin,  published 
editorially  an  "Open  Confession,"  concluding,  on  the 
strength  of  the  famous  Lichnowsky  memorandum,  that 
Germany  had  deliberately  caused  the  War.  The  State 

*  Minnesota,  with  its  large  foreign  population,  is  wisely  dis- 
tributing large  numbers  of  Kale's  "The  Man  Without  a  Coun- 
try," and  Blythe's  "Der  Tag  for  Us." 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  163 

Council  promptly  had  this  article  republished  in  all 
the  other  German  newspapers,  and  also  circulated  it 
in  leaflet  form  by  the  thousand. 

The  result  of  such  patriotic  propaganda  is  revealed 
in  the  fact  that  in  German-populated  counties  in  Wis- 
consin that  had  subscribed  only  twenty  or  thirty  per 
cent  of  their  Second  Liberty  Loan  quotas,  the  sub- 
scriptions to  the  Third  Loan  all  exceeded  one  hundred 
per  cent,  and  in  some  cases  more  than  two  hundred! 

Of  no  less  importance  is  the  instruction  of  aliens 
in  English.  Illinois,  for  example,  has  undertaken  to 
teach  English  to  every  foreign-speaking  woman  in  the 
State.  Many  classes  have  already  been  started  in 
connection  with  large  factories,  the  manufacturers  co- 
operating on  account  of  their  recognition  of  the  in- 
crease in  efficiency  that  must  result. 

Housing  is  another  phase  of  "welfare  work"  receiv- 
ing stimulus  from  the  efforts  of  the  Councils.  Here 
in  Washington,  for  example,  the  District  Council  of 
Defense  maintains  a  Room  Registration  Bureau  that 
during  last  June  listed  1,616  rooms  and  placed  1,955 
people ;  while  away  out  in  Arizona  the  large  employers 
of  labour  have  been  brought  to  effect  a  substantial  im- 
provement in  living  conditions, — and  this  in  general  is 
true  of  the  country  at  large. 

One  of  Pennsylvania's  novel  and  noteworthy 
achievements  is  the  appropriation  by  the  Council  of 
$50,000  to  train  boys  to  work  on  the  farms.  Experi- 
ment last  year  having  proved  that  boys  can  earn  a 
wage  of  two  dollars  a  day  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
farmers,  this  year  the  boys  are  to  be  assembled  in 


164  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

forty  Liberty  Camps,  or  "Farm  Plattsburgs,"  and  sup- 
plied with  tents,  food,  and  cooking  and  sleeping  out- 
fits. 

Texas  is  leading  the  country  in  public  education  in 
health,  while  Virginia  leads  in  the  stern  measures  en- 
forced against  social  vice.  No  State  outdoes  Ohio  in 
the  excellence  of  its  free  Employment  Service,  while 
Arkansas  challenges  comparison  for  its  devotion  to 
War  Relief.  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Florida  are 
subject  to  reorganisation  that  ought  to  bring  as  good 
results  as  that  of  Idaho,  for  example,  while  Maryland 
challenges  South  Carolina  in  the  wise  organisation  of 
its  Negroes.  Wyoming  co-operates  with  the  Bureau 
of  Forestry  in  an  interesting  movement  to  arrange  for 
the  use  of  nationally  owned  forests  as  grazing  land, 
with  a  large  resultant  increase  in  stock  accommoda- 
tions already.  South  Dakota  engages  in  an  early  fuel- 
buying  campaign  with  the  slogan,  "Buy  coal  now  or 
twist  hay  next  winter !" — while  North  Dakota  attacks 
"slacker  land"  by  ordering  all  the  idle  acres  to  be 
broken  up  and  cropped,  this  conscription  of  "slacker 
land"  having  resulted  already  in  an  increase  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  acres  of  crop-lands,  half  being  given  to 
wheat ! 

Thus  the  Councils  differ  as  radically  in  specific 
character  "as  the  Maine  fisherman  from  the  Arizona 
cowboy,"  but  all  are  animated  by  a  common  purpose, 
and  give  witness  to  the  awakening  of  a  new  national 
consciousness.  What  they  will  mean  to  the  future  no 
man  can  tell.  A  New  England  leader  said  recently : 

'Never  in  my  life  have  I  been  thrown  with  so  many 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  165 

different  sorts  of  interesting  people  as  in  this  State 
war  work.  Most  of  them  never  had  any  use  for 
political  life  before  the  War.  They  called  local  politics 
a  dirty  business  and  kept  away  from  it.  But  now  they 
are  finding  public  service  the  most  fascinating  game 
they  ever  took  part  in.  It  is  queer  to  see  them  play- 
ing it  side  by  side — capitalists  and  labour  leaders,  men 
and  women  of  every  creed,  every  party,  every  walk  of 
life. 

"You  can't  tell  me  that  the  new  blood  these  people 
are  infusing  into  our  public  life  will  not  have  a  perma- 
nent strengthening  and  purifying  influence,  or  that 
they  will  ever  sit  by  after  the  War  is  over  and  let 
things  slide  back  into  our  old  haphazard  government 
by  quacks  and  crooks  and  phrase-makers.  It  is  a 
hopeful  sign.  If  State  Socialism  comes— and  I  begin 
to  feel  that  it  is  coming — it  looks  as  if  we  should  have 
the  men  to  run  it!" 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    RESEARCH    COUNCIL    AND    THE    SHIPPING    BOARD 

"LIAISON"  is  a  word  that  has  come  into  its  own 
through  the  War.  We  borrowed  it  from  the  French 
originally  to  denote  a  questionable  social  relation,  but 
closer  contact  with  them  has  acquainted  us  with  its 
deeper  and  highly  respectable  meaning,  that  of  "bond," 
or  "union,"  and  we  have  now  adopted  their  military 
use  of  it  to  denote  various  ties  that  link  us  together  in 
war  work.  As  already  shown  in  Chapter  V,  it  is 
used  in  Washington  of  men  who  link  up  one  depart- 
ment of  governmental  activity  with  another ;  these  are 
called  for  convenience  "liaison  officers,"  after  the 
usage  obtaining  on  the  battlefields. 

My  spare  time  in  Washington,  between  journeys, 
passed  all  the  more  pleasantly  because  it  fell  to  my 
lot  to  be  a  connecting  link  between  our  Section  of 
the  Council  of  Defense  and  the  National  Research 
Council.  The  work  of  that  newly  organised  body  is 
of  such  great  interest  and  import  that  I  intend  to  set 
down  here  a  brief  account  of  it,  which  I  draw  almost 
entirely  from  publications  made  by  its  officers. 

Its  aim  is  to  group  into  one  common  "liaison"  or 
union  all  of  the  scientific  agencies  of  the  Government 
and,  indeed,  of  the  Nation,  so  as  to  mobilise  them 

166 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  167 

swiftly  and  effectively  for  national  service;  and  to 
clasp  hands  across  the  seas  with  our  Allies.  Backed 
by  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences,  whose  offspring 
it  is,  the  Research  Council  looks  farther  than  the  War, 
and  should  result  in  an  international  comity  of  scien- 
tific endeavour  that  will  mean  much  for  the  future  of 
mankind. 

No  more  striking  recognition  of  the  work  to  be 
wrought  by  scientific  research  in  the  world  of  the  fu- 
ture has  ever  been  accorded  than  that  set  down  by 
the  British  Labour  Party  in  its  "Reconstruction  Pro- 
gramme." This  party  "calls  for  more  warmth  in  pol- 
itics, for  much  less  apathetic  acquiescence  in  the  mis- 
eries that  exist,  for  none  of  the  cynicism  that  saps  the 
life  of  leisure.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Labour  party 
has  no  belief  in  any  of  the  problems  of  the  world  being 
solved  by  good  will  alone.  Good  will  without  knowl- 
edge is  warmth  without  light.  .  .  .  The  Labour  party 
stands  for  increased  study,  for  the  scientific  investiga- 
tion of  each  succeeding  problem,  for  the  deliberate  or- 
ganisation of  research,  and  for  a  much  more  rapid  dis- 
semination among  the  whole  people  of  all  the  science 
that  exists."1 

The  chairman  and  indeed  the  founder  of  the  Na- 
tional Research  Council,  Dr.  George  Ellery  Hale,  was 
deeply  impressed,  on  visiting  Europe  in  the  spring  of 
1917,  with  the  marvellous  acceleration  occasioned  by 
the  present  War  in  the  science  of  medical  relief.  In 

1  "Towards  a  New  World"  may  be  had  in  pamphlet  form  for 
20  cts.  from  W.  R.  Browne,  Wyoming,  N.  Y.  Documents  of 
the  very  highest  importance  comprise  this  booklet. 


168  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  hospital  of  Compiegne,  accompanied  by  Dr.  Alexis 
Carrel,  he  witnessed  the  operation  of  "a  system  of 
surgery  in  striking  contrast  with  the  crude  and  often 
deadly  methods  in  vogue  during  our  Civil  War." 

"The  success  of  Carrel's  system,"  Dr.  Hale  con- 
tinues, "is  not  due  to  a  single  element,  but  to  the  com- 
bined advantages  of  a  highly  developed  technique. 
The  operation  itself  is  first  performed  with  unusual 
care.  A  system  of  rubber  tubes,  with  openings  at  close 
intervals,  is  next  arranged  over  the  wound,  which  is 
then  irrigated  to  the  greatest  possible  depth  at  regular 
intervals  with  Dakin's  antiseptic  fluid,  supplied  from 
a  reservoir.  We  were  shown  every  element  in  the 
plan,  the  patients  cheerfully  submitting  their  wounds 
to  inspection.  While  I  could  not  follow  my  com- 
panion (Doctor  William  H.  Welch)  in  his  apprecia- 
tion of  the  details,  I  could  at  least  admire  the  extraor- 
dinary results  and  rejoice  with  him  in  this  magnifi- 
cent contribution  of  science  to  the  relief  of  the  hor- 
rors of  battle. 

"Think  of  the  contrast  with  the  surgery  of  the  Civil 
War !  I  have  heard  our  veteran  colleague,  Dr.  Keen, 
describe  with  the  emotion  which  all  who  were  forced 
to  use  those  earlier  methods  must  now  experience,  the 
deadly  errors  into  which  they  were  led  by  ignorance, 
at  length  dispelled  by  the  greatest  of  Frenchmen — 
Pasteur.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  in  those  days — 
not  so  long  ago,  yet  mediaeval  in  their  obscurity — 
for  a  surgeon  to  withdraw  his  knife  from  a  wound, 
sharpen  it  upon  his  boot,  and  plunge  it  once  more, 
loaded  with  violent  bacteria,  into  the  very  lifeblood 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  169 

of  his  patient !  What  wonder  that  deaths  were  a  com- 
mon sequence  of  even  trivial  wounds!  And  yet  the 
human  sympathy  of  the  surgeon  and  his  intense  de- 
sire to  save  were  no  less  obvious  than  at  the  present 
day. 

"What  has  accomplished  this  marvellous  revolution? 
The  patient  researches  of  Pasteur  and  their  adaptation 
to  the  art  of  surgery  by  such  men  as  Lister  and  Carrel. 
No  better  proof  of  the  value  of  scientific  research  to 
the  world,  no  clearer  evidence  of  its  intensely  practical 
importance  in  the  midst  of  this  world  war,  could  pos- 
sibly be  asked."1 

The  organisation  of  the  National  Research  Council 
is  based  upon  the  principle  of  broad  and  effective  co- 
operation between  the  numerous  scientific  agencies  of 
the  United  States  and  those  of  the  allied  countries. 
The  Council  is  in  reality  a  federation  of  research 
laboratories,  working  together  toward  a  common  end. 
At  present  its  chief  purpose  is  to  assist  in  winning  the 
War,  both  by  the  perfection  of  military  devices  and 
by  the  solution  of  industrial  problems  which  the  War 
has  occasioned.  But  in  the  future,  it  will  devote  its 
attention  to  the  promotion  of  research  in  all  branches 
of  pure  and  applied  science. 

The  organisation  of  researches  bearing  on  the  na- 
tional defense  frequently  involves  the  co-operative  ef- 
fort of  many  investigators  residing  in  different  States. 
Sometimes  the  joint  action  of  an  entire  university 
in  question,  is  essential  to  success.  Several  researches 

1  "How  Men  of  Science  Will  Help  in  Our  War,"  Hale,  Scrib- 
ner's  Magazine,  Vol.  LXL,  No.  6,  p.  721. 


170  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

are  in  hand  in  which  entire  laboratories  are  taking 
part.  More  commonly,  however,  individual  investiga- 
tors known  to  be  especially  qualified  are  enlisted  by 
the  National  Research  Council  from  widely  scattered 
institutions. 

By  thus  mobilising  all  of  the  scientific  resources  of 
the  country,  the  Research  Council  is  assisting  to  an 
invaluable  degree  in  the  perfection  of  devices  having 
direct  and  immediate  bearing  on  the  winning  of  the 
War.  Obviously,  details  are  not  to  be  published  at 
present,  but  this  much  at  least  may  be  said:  that  in 
such  distinctive  instruments  of  modern  warfare  as 
the  submarine  and  the  aeroplane,  the  co-operative  prin- 
ciples on  which  the  Council  is  based  have  already  con- 
tributed practical  results  in  the  shape  of  detective  de- 
vices leading  to  the  destruction  of  the  former,  and  of 
safety  devices  for  protection  of  the  latter,  and  for  the 
consequent  protection  of  thousands  of  the  choicest  of 
American  lives. 

In  his  New  York  address  before  the  Engineering 
Foundation  (in  May,  1918),  Dr.  Hale  gave  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  the  most  recent  development  of 
the  Council,  involving  as  it  does  a  broad  international 
scheme  of  incalculable  promise  for  the  scientific  prog- 
ress of  the  world. 

By  joint  action  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  Navy, 
with  the  approval  of  the  Council  of  National  Defense, 
have  authorised  and  approved  the  organisation, 
through  the  National  Research  Council,  of  a  Research 
Information  Committee  in  Washington,  with  branch 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  171 

Committees  in  Paris  and  London,  which  are  intended 
to  work  in  close  co-operation  with  the  offices  of  the 
Military  and  Naval  Intelligence,  and  whose  function 
shall  be  the  securing,  classifying,  and  disseminating  of 
scientific,  technical  and  industrial  research  informa- 
tion, especially  relating  to  war  problems,  and  the  in- 
terchange of  such  information  between  the  Allies  in 
Europe  and  the  United  States. 

In  Washington  the  Committee  consists  of,  first, 
a  civilian  member  representing  the  National  Research 
Council,  Dr.  S.  W.  Stratton,  Chairman;  second,  the 
Chief,  Military  Intelligence  Section;  third,  the  Di- 
rector of  Naval  Intelligence;  and  fourth,  a  Technical 
Assistant,  Dr.  Graham  Edgar.  Similar  Committees 
are  being  organised  in  Paris  and  London. 

The  initial  organisation  of  the  Committee  in  Paris 
is: 

(a)  The   Scientific  Attache,  representing  the  Re- 
search Information  Committee,  Dr.  W.  F.  Durand, 
Attache. 

(b)  The  Military  Attache  or  an  officer  deputed  to 
act  for  him. 

(c)  The  Naval  Attache  or  an  officer  deputed  to 
act  for  him. 

(d)  A  Technical  Assistant,  Dr.  K.  T.  Compton. 

(e)  A  Military  Assistant,  Mr.  Tod  Ford. 

The  initial  organisation  of  the  Committee  in  Lon- 
don is: 

(a)  The   Scientific  Attache  representing  the  Re- 
search Information  Committee,  Dr.  H.  A.  Bumstead, 
Attache. 

(b)  The  Military  Attache  or  an  officer  deputed  to 
act  for  him. 

(c)  The  Naval  Attache  or  an  officer  deputed  to 
act  for  him. 

(d)  A  Technical  Assistant,  Mr.  S.  W.  Farnsworth. 


172  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

The  chief  functions  of  the  foreign  Committees  thus 
organised  are  intended  to  be  as  follows: 

(a)  The  development  of  contact  with  all  important 
research   laboratories   or   agencies,   governmental  or 
private;   the   compilation   of   problems   and   subjects 
under  investigation;  and  the  collection  and  compila- 
tion of  the  results  obtained. 

(b)  The  classification,   organisation   and  prepara- 
tion of  such  information  for  transmission  to  the  Re- 
search Information  Committee  in  Washington. 

(c)  The  maintenance  of  continuous  contact  with 
the  work  of  the  offices  of  Military  and  Naval  Attaches, 
in  order  that  all  duplication  of  work  or  crossing  of 
effort  may  be  avoided,  with  the  consequent  waste  of 
time  and  energy  and  the  confusion  resulting  from 
crossed  or  duplicated  effort. 

(d)  To  serve  as  an  immediate  auxiliary  to  the  of- 
fices of  the  Military  and  Naval  Attaches  in  the  collec- 
tion, analysis,  and  compilation  of  scientific,  technical, 
and  industrial  research  information. 

(e)  To  serve  as  an  agency  at  the  immediate  service 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Military  and  Na- 
val forces  in  Europe  for  the  collection  and  analysis 
of  scientific  and  technical  research  information  and 
as  an  auxiliary  to  such  direct  military  and  naval 
agencies  as  may  be  in  use  for  the  purpose. 

(f)  To   serve   as   centres   of   distribution   to   the 
American  Expeditionary  Forces  in  France  and  to  the 
American    Naval    Forces    in    European  4Waters   of 
scientific   and   technical   research   information   orig- 
inating in  the  United  States  and  transmitted  through 
the  Research   Information   Committee  in  Washing- 
ton. 

(g)  To  serve  as  centres  of  distribution  to  our  Allies 
in  Europe  of  scientific,  technical  and  industrial  re- 
search information  originating  in  the  United  States 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  173 

and  transmitted  through  the  Research  Information 
Committee  in  Washington. 

(h)  The  maintenance  of  the  necessary  contact  be- 
tween the  officer  in  Paris  and  London  in  order  that 
provision  may  be  made  for  the  direct  and  prompt  in- 
terchange of  important  scientific  and  technical  infor- 
mation. 

(i)  To  aid  research  workers  or  collectors  of  scien- 
tific, technical  and  industrial  information  from  the 
United  States,  when  properly  accredited  from  the 
Research  Information  Committee  in  Washington, 
in  best  achieving  their  several  and  particular  pur- 
poses. 

The  chief  functions  of  the  Washington  Office  of  the 
Committee  are  as  follows: 

(a)  To  provide  means  of  ready  co-operation  with 
the  Paris  and  London  offices  of  the  Committee  by: 

Receiving,  collating  and  disseminating  information 
forwarded  from  these  offices; 

Rendering  available  such  evidence  and  documents 
as  may  be  collected  by  the  National  Research  Council 
relative  to  research  in  the  United  States,  so  as  to  for- 
mulate replies  to  inquiries  sent  from  abroad; 

Communicating  to  foreign  offices  needs  for  addi- 
tional information  relating  to  problems  originating  in 
the  United  States. 

(b)  Classification,  cataloguing  and  filing  of  papers 
and  reports  received  from  various  sources  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  National  Research  Council,  and  record  of 
researches  in  progress  concerning  which  detailed  in- 
formation may  be  obtained  elsewhere. 

(c)  Issue  of   lists   of   available   information   and 
preparation  of  digests  of  such  information  for  distri- 
bution to  properly  accredited  persons. 

(d)  Maintenance  of  contact  with  various  research 
agencies  in  the  United  States. 


174  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

An  appropriation  of  $38,400  has  been  made  by  the 
Council  of  National  Defense  to  cover  the  expenses  of 
the  Research  Information  Committee  for  the  current 
year. 

Vice-Admiral  Sims,  in  Command  of  the  U.  S. 
Naval  Forces  Operating  in  European  Waters,  has 
been  particularly  cordial  in  his  welcome  of  the  foreign 
representatives  of  the  Research  Council.  Fully  ap- 
preciating the  possibilities  of  scientific  co-operation,  he 
has  issued  a  circular  letter  to  all  naval  officers  and  in- 
vestigators in  Europe,  directing  them  to  facilitate  the 
work  of  the  Scientific  Attache  in  every  possible  way, 
to  keep  him  fully  informed  of  investigations  in  prog- 
ress or  needed,  and  to  make  every  proper  effort  to 
see  that  all  investigators,  whether  officers  or  civilians, 
shall  consult  the  Scientific  Attache  in  order  to  avoid 
unnecessary  duplication  of  work  and  to  utilise  scien- 
tific and  technical  information  obtained  from  any 
source.  He  has  also  created  a  Scientific  Division  of 
his  staff,  and  placed  Dr.  Bumstead  at  its  head.  Major- 
General  Biddle,  in  command  at  American  Army 
Headquarters  in  England,  has  issued  similar  orders 
to  ordnance,  engineer,  gas,  signal,  aviation,  medical 
and  other  offices  in  England.  The  British  Govern- 
ment, on  its  part,  has  opened  every  source  of  informa- 
tion to  Dr.  Bumstead,  and  provided  for  the  closest  co- 
operation in  research. 

In  France,  Dr.  Durand  is  also  in  close  touch  with 
our  own  Army  and  Navy,  and  with  the  French  Gov- 
ernment and  men  of  science.  He  has  also  been  ap- 
pointed the  representative  of  the  United  States  on 
the  Inter-Allied  Board  of  Inventions. 

The  Ministry  of  Munitions  in  Rome  has  recently 
requested,  through  the  Italian  Ambassador  in  Wash- 
ington, that  a  representative  of  the  National  Research 
Council  be  sent  to  Rome  as  Scientific  Attache  and 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  175 

head  of  an  Italian  branch  of  the  Research  Informa- 
tion Committee. 

The  natural  development  of  the  work  of  the  Re- 
search Information  Committee  will  lead  to  the  con- 
centration in  the  office  of  the  National  Research  Coun- 
cil, where  the  Washington  headquarters  of  the  Com- 
mittee is  established,  of  all  available  information  re- 
garding research  problems  under  investigation  both 
in  the  United  States  and  abroad.  At  the  same  time 
a  service  is  being  developed  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing properly  accredited  inquirers  into  touch  with  exist- 
ing sources  of  scientific,  technical,  and  engineering 
information  in  the  United  States.  One  of  the  most 
valuable  of  these  is  the  Information  Service  of  the 
American  Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers,  which  is 
furnishing  much  important  material  to  the  National 
Research  Council.  A  central  office  from  which  in- 
quirers may  be  directed  to  Government  bureaus  and  to 
such  sources  of  information  as  that  just  mentioned 
has  long  been  needed,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  serv- 
ice of  the  Research  Information  Committee,  once 
well  organised,  will  be  in  increasing  demand. 


The  best  example  of  practical  (and  highly  valuable) 
co-operation  between  the  National  Research  Council 
and  an  individual  State  Council  of  Defense  is  afford- 
ed in  the  case  of  California.  Dr.  John  C.  Merriam, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Scientific  Research 
under  the  California  Council  of  Defense,  reported  last 
October  to  the  Commonwealth  Club  of  San  Francisco 
certain  items  of  important  achievement  that  should 
spur  similar  committees  on  other  State  Councils  to 
"go  and  do  likewise." 


176  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Work  on  economic  problems  in  chemistry,  said  Dr. 
Merriam,  includes  an  investigation  of  extraction  of 
potash  from  mother  liquor  obtained  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  salt,  a  study  of  the  utilisation  of  wood  waste, 
a  study  of  derivatives  of  petroleum,  and  an  effort  to 
devise  new  processes  for  manufacture  of  cyanide  at  a 
reduced  cost. 

The  committee  on  geology  and  mineral  resources 
has  been  exceedingly  active.  Consideration  was  given 
first  to  those  carefully  selected  problems  for  which 
solution  is  most  urgently  needed.  It  was  through  the 
recommendation  of  the  committee  on  geology  that  the 
Commission  on  Petroleum  Investigation  was  ap- 
pointed, as  almost  the  first  action  arising  out  of  the 
work  of  the  Committee  on  Scientific  Research.  It 
was  also  through  the  committee  on  geology  and  min- 
eral resources  that  impetus  was  given  to  investigation 
of  existing  iron  resources,  since  taken  over  by  the 
committee  on  economics. 

As  next  in  importance  to  petroleum  and  iron,  the 
geological  committee  is  now  engaged  in  a  study  of 
the  state's  important  resources  in  manganese,  so  nec- 
essary in  certain  alloys  used  in  steel  production.  The 
committee  is  also  working  on  metallurgical  processes, 
which  will  make  more  useful  the  manganese  ores  now 
available.  The  work  on  manganese  is  being  con- 
ducted by  three  of  the  men  most  fully  equipped  for 
this  investigation,  and  is  done  in  co-operation  with  the 
Federal  government  and  the  California  State  Mining 
Bureau.  This  resource  of  our  state  is  large,  and  de- 
serves full  exploitation  at  this  time. 

Through  the  recommendation  of  the  committee  on 
geology  and  mineral  resources,  the  Governor,  as  chair- 
man of  the  Council  of  Defense,  appointed  a  committee 
to  investigate  the  petroleum  resources  of  California 
with  a  view  to  presenting  such  information  as  might 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  17T 

be  needed  in  forming  a  judgment  concerning  meas- 
ures required  to  place  this  state  in  a  position  to  meet 
emergency  conditions. 

With  most  praiseworthy  energy  the  committee 
brought  together  a  carefully  prepared  statement  of 
existing  conditions  in  the  field  of  petroleum  produc- 
tion in  California.  It  has  also  presented  definite  rec- 
ommendations regarding  procedure  making  it  possible 
to  meet  the  existing  emergency,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
care  for  future  conservation  of  our  oil  supply.  The 
committee  prepared  its  report  in  well  organised  form, 
printed  it  and  distributed  copies  to  all  interests  con- 
cerned with  the  problem,  within  a  remarkably  short 
time  following  its  appointment.  This  work  has  re- 
ceived wide  approval  and  represents  one  of  the  most 
important  investigations  undertaken  as  a  part  of  the 
emergency  programme  in  this  country. 

The  committee  on  zoological  investigations  has 
under  way  a  survey  of  the  possible  sea-food  forms  on 
the  California  coast.  This  is  giving  data  on  the  num- 
ber of  kinds  of  fish  and  molluscs  available,  the  rela- 
tive quantities  of  each,  and  the  extent  to  which  they 
have  heretofore  been  used.  Through  the  biological 
station  at  La  Jolla  the  committee  has  under  way 
a  careful  study  of  conditions  governing  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  tuna  and  other  food  fishes  of  the  southern 
coast.  Up  to  this  time  we  have  not  known  certainly 
the  true  nature  of  the  tuna  supply  as  to  quantity,  as 
to  its  normal  location,  or  as  to  the  conditions  which 
govern  its  movement.  A  third  inquiry  which  is  under 
way  covers  investigation  of  use  of  fish  for  fertiliser, 
hog  feed,  and  chicken  feed.  It  is  carried  on  with  the 
idea  that  it  may  be  possible,  by  more  careful  co-ordina- 
tion of  the  work  in  fish  industries,  to  get  a  larger 
and  cheaper  supply  of  food  for  poultry  raisers.  A 
fourth  problem  covers  investigation  of  conditions  un- 


178  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

der  which  certain  sea-foods  may  be  poisonous  to  men, 
with  a  view  to  making  their  freer  use  possible  under 
proper  conditions. 

The  work  of  the  committee  on  psychological  inves- 
tigations has  centered  on  the  study  of  aviation,  with 
the  purpose  of  securing  such  information  as  will  make 
it  possible  to  determine  from  preliminary  tests  the 
ultimate  fitness  or  unfitness  of  men  for  aeronautic 
work.  Much  has  been  generally  reported  concerning 
studies  on  this  subject,  but  the  field  is  as  yet  imper- 
fectly known.  Permission  was  obtained  from  gov- 
ernment authorities  at  Washington  and  San  Diego 
to  carry  on  a  series  of  experiments  at  the  government 
aviation  school  at  San  Diego.  A  temporary  labora- 
tory was  established  at  San  Diego  and  experiments 
were  carried  on  by  Professor  G.  M.  Stratton  and  Mr. 
Spencer  W.  Symons.  The  data  so  gathered  are  now 
being  interpreted.  Men  in  the  school  of  aeronautics 
at  the  University  of  California  have  also  been  exam- 
ined and  preparations  are  being  made  to  examine 
many  others  from  time  to  time  in  the  psychological 
laboratory  of  the  University.  Professor  Warner 
Brown  and  fourteen  or  more  advanced  students  of 
the  University  will  assist  in  this  work. 

Out  of  the  large  number  of  emergency  problems  re- 
quiring investigation,  the  committee  on  medical  re- 
search has  given  special  attention  to  three.  These 
are:  (i)  Work  on  botulism,  a  particular  form  of 
food  poisoning  originating  especially  in  use  of  cer- 
tain kinds  of  canned  vegetables;  (2)  the  study  of  tri- 
nitro-toluine  poisoning  from  munition  factories;  (3) 
a  possible  new  cure  for  tuberculosis. 

The  work  on  botulism,  or  food  poisoning,  carried 
on  by  Doctor  E.  C.  Dickson  of  the  Stanford  Medical 
School,  has  been  progressing  favourably.  Doctor 
Dickson  has  been  able  to  show  that  the  cold-pack 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  179 

method  of  canning  vegetables  recommended  by  the 
Federal  Department  of  Agriculture  does  not  prevent 
development  of  bacillus  botulinus  which  causes  this 
poisoning.  Several  other  series  of  experiments  re- 
lated to  the  development  of  this  important  subject  are 
under  way  and  results  will  be  available  in  the  near 
future. 

The  study  of  a  possible  new  cure  for  tuberculosis 
is  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  Doctor  F.  P.  Gay 
of  the  University  of  California.  Experiments  on  the 
curative  results  obtained  by  use  of  a  substance  known 
as  taurine  in  infected  guinea  pigs  and  rabbits  are  pro- 
ceeding satisfactorily.  These  experiments  require 
from  four  to  six  months  for  their  completion.  As  a 
preliminary  application  of  the  experiments  to  a  study 
of  tuberculosis  in  man,  it  has  been  possible  to  show 
the  absence  of  poisonous  effects  of  taurine  injected 
into  the  blood  of  man,  and  Doctor  Gay  has  begun  pre- 
liminary treatment  of  human  cases  with  taurine.  This 
work  is  facilitated  by  the  discovery  of  a  new  process 
for  extraction  of  taurine  from  abalones.  A  consider- 
able supply  of  taurine  is  now  being  prepared  for  a 
study  of  tuberculosis  in  human  beings.  Tuberculosis 
has  become  a  terrible  menace  in  France,  and  anything 
that  can  be  done  to  reduce  its  ravages  in  this  emer- 
gency, or  following  it,  should  be  advanced. 

These  pages  seem  to  the  writer  to  illustrate  with 
convincing  power  the  fact  that  the  World  War  is 
jolting  America  out  of  a  comatose  state  of  national 
inefficiency  into  a  unity  of  organised  effort  which  in 
itself  more  than  compensates  for  the  cost  of  the  War 
in  blood  and  treasure. 

Here  in  Washington  many  people  have  told  us 
how  to  win  the  War.  Joffre  calls  for  more  men, 


180  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Hoover  says  the  chief  need  is  meat  and  wheat,  Medill 
McCormick  comes  back  from  the  front  and  says  that 
the  War  is  to  be  won  by  huge  guns  and  plenty  of 
them,  while  our  Boy  writes  home  from  the  engine- 
room  of  his  "star"  submarine  chaser  that  the  navy 
people  think  "over  there"  that  the  War  will  have  to 
be  won  by  American  airplanes,  "blinding"  the  enemy. 
Who  is  right  ?  Probably  all.  Certainly  it  is  men  that 
must  win  the  War,  and  our  brave  troops  must  always 
be  remembered  as  incomparably  more  valuable  than 
machinery  or  munitions  or  provisions;  but  they  must 
all  be  fed,  and  supplied  with  the  necessary  imple- 
ments and  instruments.  Obviously,  then,  a  funda- 
mental need  is  for  ships.  The  men  lack  Peter's  gift 
of  walking  on  the  water,  the  cannon  cannot  trundle 
across,  the  meat  and  wheat  must  be  transported,  even 
the  aircraft  cannot  fly  across  the  sea.  You  cannot 
ship  men  without  ships,  and  then  they  must  be  pro- 
visioned and  munitioned  by  a  continuous  shuttling 
of  these  ships  across  the  ocean,  for  it  requires  at  least 
two  million  tons  of  shipping  to  take  care  of  half-a- 
million  soldiers  "over  there." 

To  bring  such  rudimentary  facts  home  to  the  people, 
and  especially  to  university  students,  became  one  of 
my  special  tasks  in  December,  1917,  when  I  entered 
the  employment — at  another  "dollar  a  year" — of  the 
Industrial  Service  Department  of  the  Emergency  Fleet 
Corporation.  Co-operating  with  Dr.  Frank  P.  McKib- 
ben,  of  Lehigh  University,  and  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Meyer  Bloomfield,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  assisting 


SCIENCE  AND  SHIPS  181 

in  securing  large  numbers  of  students  for  the  ship- 
yards in  a  period  of  serious  emergency. 

Everybody  knows  of  the  differences  that  developed 
between  General  Goethals  and  Mr.  William  Denman 
soon  after  we  entered  the  War,  regarding  the  relative 
merits  of  steel  and  wooden  ships.  General  Goethals, 
who  had  been  promised  an  undivided  responsibility, 
ultimately  resigned  in  consequence  of  a  hopeless  "dead- 
lock" resulting  from  divided  responsibility,  and  the 
President,  after  deftly  accepting  Mr.  Denman's  resig- 
nation also,  selected  Mr.  Edward  N.  Hurley  to  "boss 
the  job"  of  bridging  the  ocean  to  France.  Mr.  Hur- 
ley had  the  good  sense  shortly  to  call  to  his  aid  the 
executive  genius  of  Charles  M.  Schwab,  and  now  we 
are  really  building  ships.  But  nearly  eight  precious 
months  were  sadly  wasted,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the 
assistance  of  England  our  troops  could  never  have 
reached  France  in  the  nick  of  time  to  save  the  cause 
of  liberty.  In  his  speech  early  in  August,  1918,  re- 
viewing the  War,  David  Lloyd  George  revealed  the 
fact  that  of  the  305,000  American  troops  crossing  the 
ocean  during  the  preceding  month,  185,000  had  been 
carried  in  British  bottoms.  Our  Assistant  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Franklin  D.  Roosevelt,  said  in  Lon- 
don at  about  the  same  time :  "The  United  States  owes 
much  to  the  untiring  work  of  the  British  Navy,  for 
it  is  a  fact  that  about  sixty  per  cent  of  the  troop- 
ships carrying  Americans  to  Europe  are  British  ships, 
and  have  been  escorted  by  British  men-of-war."1 

Under  the  new  system  of  centralised  authority  given 
*  North  American  Reviews  War  Weekly,  Vol.  i,  No.  32,  p.  3. 


182  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

to  Mr.  Hurley,  our  shipbuilding  picture  is  rapidly 
brightening.  Its  later  and  brighter  side  is  shown  by 
Washington's  shipyard  report  for  July,  1918,  the  latest 
available  information  as  this  book  goes  to  the  press : 

WASHINGTON,  Aug.  6. — American  shipyards 
launched  a  greater  tonnage  during  July  than  during 
any  previous  twelve-month  period.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-three  ships,  totalling  631,944  tons,  left  the 
ways. 

Of  the  total,  sixty-seven  vessels  were  steel,  aggre- 
gating 433,244  tons;  fifty-three  ships  were  wood,  to- 
talling 187,700  tons,  three  composite  vessels  of  wood 
and  steel  making  up  the  balance. 

The  July  total,  which  was  swelled  by  the  remark- 
able launching  of  July  4,  was  more  than  double  the 
output  of  the  yards  in  June.  Officials  of  the  Shipping 
Board  believe  the  July  total  will  be  exceeded  this 
month. 

During  July  forty-one  vessels,  totalling  235,025 
tons,  were  completed  and  delivered  to  the  Shipping 
Board.  Of  this  number  thirty-six  were  steel  vessels 
of  217,025  tons  and  five  were  wooden  vessels  of 
18,000  deadweight  tons.  If  two  ships  delivered  from 
Japanese  yards  were  counted,  the  grand  total  would 
be  forty-three  ships  of  250,880  deadweight  tons. 

From  August,  1917,  when  the  present  Shipping 
Board  began  operations,  up  to  August  i  of  this  year, 
there  have  been  delivered  thirty-seven  steel  contract 
vessels  having  a  deadweight  tonnage  of  245,700  and 
210  requisitioned  vessels  totalling  1,326,156  tons,  a 
grand  total  of  247  ships  aggregating  1,571,856  tons.1 

*N.  Y.  Tribune,  August  7,  1918. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PERSONALITIES 

HAVING  spent  the  last  ten  years  in  California  and 
the  preceding  decade  in  South  Carolina,  I  naturally 
know  more  about  the  public  men  of  these  States  than 
of  others;  and  it  so  happens  that  they  are  just  now 
"to  the  front"  to  such  an  extent  that  the  country  has 
a  quickened  interest  in  them. 

The  real  majority  leader  of  the  House,  in  my  judg- 
ment, is  Representative  Asbury  F.  Lever,  of  South 
Carolina — and  an  admirable  leader  he  is.  Kitchin,  of 
my  own  native  State,  is  one  of  those  frock-coat  affairs 
that  ought  long  ago  to  have  been  relegated  to  the  po- 
litical junk-heap.  Lever,  miniature  giant  that  he  is — a 
second  Alexander  H.  Stephens? — deserves  the  highest 
gifts  at  the  hands  of  his  State  for  his  heroic  devotion 
to  the  South's  essential  cause,  agriculture;  and  above 
all  for  his  unswerving,  unquestioned  loyalty. 

It  meant  something  for  Lever  to  be  loyal.  Was 
he  not  from  the  famous  Dutch  Fork,  and  did  not  the 
disease  of  Bleaseism,  once  dominant  there,  threaten 
his  political  overthrow  if  he  dared  to  speak  out  for 
the  War?  Yet  go  to  the  Dutch  Fork  he  did,  this 
weazened  wizard,  and  bearded  them  and  heckled  them 
about  the  War — turning  the  tables  on  his  hecklers. 

183 


184  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

His  dark  face  illumined  with  those  blazing  Hack 
searchlights  of  eyes  that  redeem  him  from  homeliness, 
he  called  out  to  the  dupes  of  "Coley  Blease,"  after  he 
had  made  them  hear  his  war  story : 

"Here,  you!  Hans  Kraut,  what  would  you  have 
done  had  you  been  Wilson?  Tell  me!  And  you, 
Fritz  Schmidt,  what  would  you  have  done  in  my  place? 
Wouldn't  you  have  supported  the  President?" 

There  is  nothing  South  Carolinians  so  much  admire 
as  clean  grit ;  and,  like  Missourians,  they  also  demand 
to  be  shown.  Lever  had  both  the  case  and  the  cour- 
age; so  he  won  them,  and  won  them  overwhelmingly. 
It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  there  is  no  man  in  the 
House  on  whom  the  President  relies  more  steadfastly 
than  on  Lever,  for  he  will  be  true  to  his  trust.  It  is 
to  be  hoped,  now  that  Tillman  is  dead,  that  Lever  may 
before  long  have  a  place  in  the  Senate,  to  which  Blease 
the  infamous  aspires. 

Pitchfork  Ben!  What  an  insult  to  the  character 
this  Rough  Diamond  wrought  upon  his  granite  State 
that  Cole  L.  Blease  should  have  stirred  the  baser 
depths  of  those  rural  "masses"  whom  Tillman  first 
made  conscious  of  their  power,  and  so  won  a  way  for 
his  despicable  and  infinitely  dangerous  demagoguery 
through  paths  which  an  honest  man  had  blazed.  For 
Tillman  was  honest,  as  able.  He  revolutionised  his 
State  in  the  interest  of  the  common  people;  writing 
first  a  new  constitution,  and  converting  South  Caro- 
lina, quite  literally,  from  an  oligarchy  into  a  democ- 
racy. He  had  his  faults;  all  strong  men  have  them; 
the  greatest  of  all  faults  is  weakness.  He  sometimes 


PERSONALITIES  185 

abused  his  huge  power,  but  the  main  direction  of  his 
strength  was  ever  true,  as  true  as  the  needle  to  its  star ; 
and  that  is  the  test  of  a  man.  Pitchfork  Ben!  God 
rest  his  ruddy  soul! 

Born  in  1847  on  a  ten-thousand  acre  homestead 
that  had  been  his  family's  possession  for  more  than  a 
century  and  a  quarter,  this  heir  of  aristocracy  over- 
turned its  political  rule  in  South  Carolina.  A  life- 
long student  of  history  and  law,  he  began  his  political 
career  in  1885  by  a  speech  at  a  farmers'  convention. 
The  State  was  startled  by  his  originality  and  power. 
Not  until  four  years  later,  however,  did  his  influence 
become  strong  enough  to  build  a  legislative  platform 
of  reform.  From  that  time  forward  the  State  di- 
vided into  Tillmanites  and  "antis."  The  "cornfield 
lawyer,"  as  he  liked  to  call  himself,  was  elected  Gov- 
ernor after  a  "raw,  self-advertising  campaign"  in 
which  he  drove  from  place  to  place  in  a  farm  wagon 
"decorated  with  sheaves  of  grain,  cotton-stalks,  corn- 
tassels,  and  pea-vines.  Often  the  horses  were  taken 
out  of  the  wagon  and  it  was  drawn  by  a  hundred  or 
more  farmers."  After  a  second  term  as  Governor  he 
was  sent  to  the  Senate,  to  remain  there  twenty-four 
years. 

His  most  important  work  in  his  State,  after  revolu- 
tionising it,  was  the  establishment  of  the  Clemson 
Agricultural  and  Mechanical  College,  on  the  site  of 
Calhoun's  old  home,  at  Fort  Mill,  and  the  Winthrop 
Normal  and  Industrial  College  for  Girls,  at  Rock 
Hill.  His  most  important  work  in  the  Senate  was 
done  in  recent  years  as  chairman  of  the  Naval  Affairs 


186  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Committee ;  for  "Pitchfork  Ben"  was  no  pacifist.  He 
never  uttered  nobler  words  than  those  of  1916,  when, 
answering  a  charge  that  the  South  was  giving  sec- 
tional direction  to  national  affairs,  he  said: 

"The  country  belongs  to  us  all  and  we  all  belong 
to  it.  The  men  of  the  North,  South,  East  and  West 
carved  it  out  of  the  wilderness  and  made  it  great. 
.  .  .  Let  us  share  it  with  each  other,  then,  and  con- 
serve it,  giving  to  it  the  best  that  is  in  us  of  brain  and 
brawn  and  heart." 

Hiram  Johnson  revolutionised  California  almost  to 
the  same  degree  that  Tillman  revolutionised  Carolina. 
Both  States  were  ruled  by  oligarchies;  one  social,  the 
other  commercial.  The  aristocrats  "ran"  South  Caro- 
lina before  Tillman,  and  the  Southern  Pacific  Railway 
ran  California  before  Johnson  opened  his  smashing 
1910  campaign  with  a  single  plank — "to  kick  the 
Southern  Pacific  out  of  politics." 

Having  kicked  it  out,  he  kept  it  out;  and,  by  such 
constitutional  amendments  as  those  involving  the  initi- 
ative, referendum,  and  recall,  made  it  as  nearly  im- 
possible as  any  legislation  can  for  it  or  any  other  "big 
interest"  ever  to  control  the  State  again.  Other  things 
he  did,  one  of  them  certainly  unwise.  Just  as  Till- 
man's  great  mistake  was  the  Dispensary  system  for 
the  sale  of  liquor,  Johnson's  lay  in  his  failure  to  pre- 
vent (in  1913)  the  enactment  of  a  discriminatory 
Anti-Alien  law.1  But  in  spite  of  this,  Johnson  was 
the  greatest  American  Governor  of  recent  years.  I 
express  now  the  same  judgment  pronounced  of  him  in 
JSee  "The  Japanese  Crisis,"  Scherer,  pp.  97,  115. 


PERSONALITIES  187 

October,  1916,  when  introducing  him — in  his  contest 
for  the  Senate — to  a  Los  Angeles  mass  meeting. 

"Citizens  of  California,"  I  said,  "the  very  terms  in 
which  I  address  you  all  at  this  moment  were  made 
possible  under  the  leadership  of  the  great  Governor 
whom  it  is  my  privilege  to  introduce.  Instead  of 
laying  emphasis  on  distinctions — instead  of  saying 
Ladies  and  Gentlemen — we  are  able  in  this  State  under 
his  leadership  to  address  men  and  women  together  as 
citizens;  and  if  the  Johnson  administration  had  ac- 
complished nothing  else  for  human  rights  this  alone 
would  entitle  it  to  fame. 

"But  human  rights  has  been  the  keynote  of  numer- 
ous notable  achievements.  The  Workmen's  Compen- 
sation Act,  satisfactory  to  employer  and  employee 
alike,  has  secured  for  labour  a  larger  share  of  life, 
liberty,  and  happiness  than  it  hitherto  enjoyed,  with 
actual  profit  and  protection  to  capital.  A  Railway 
Commission  has  worked  the  miracle  of  securing  fairer 
service  for  the  people,  with  the  corporations  them- 
selves applauding  its  fairness  and  efficiency !  A  Hous- 
ing Commission,  proceeding  on  the  salutary  principle 
that  prevention  is  better  than  cure,  wards  off  the  slum 
and  invites  the  immigrant  to  a  citizenship  that  shall 
involve  a  clean  and  wholesome  home.  A  system  of 
good  roads  unites  the  Sierras  with  the  seas  and  breaks 
the  barrier  of  the  Tehachepi  with  a  network  of  State 
highways  built  without  a  breath  of  scandal  or  a  rumour 
of  waste  in  such  fashion  as  to  win  the  admiration  of 
the  world.  Many  other  such  things  have  been  done; 
and  yet  the  people's  purse  has  been  so  carefully  safe- 


188  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

guarded  that  instead  of  the  deficit  of  $265,000  which 
Johnson  found,  to-day  we  have  to  our  credit  $4,500,- 
ooo  of  state  funds.  Best  of  all:  our  liberties  have 
been  restored  to  us,  and  not  only  restored  but  secured. 

"This  is  the  man  whom  California  is  willing  to  lend 
to  the  Nation.  The  Nation  needs  him.  He  says  in 
his  platform : 

"  'I  shall  endeavour  to  extend  to  the  Nation  by  fed- 
eral action  what  we  have  given  to  our  State,  suffrage 
for  women.' 

"He  says,  further: 

"  'I  am  for  national  preparedness — a  preparedness 
sufficient  to  protect  our  citizens  and  to  preserve  our 
Nation  from  invasion  or  aggression.  I  am  not  only 
for  this  sort  of  preparedness,  but  equally  I  am  for  the 
preparedness  necessary  for  both  peace  and  war — that 
preparedness  which  begins  with  social  health,  with  so- 
cial justice,  with  social  conditions  which  produce  men 
who  can  be  good  soldiers  because  they  have  had  a  fair 
chance  to  be  good  and  contented  citizens.' 

"Hiram  Johnson  is  not  seeking  an  honour,  he  is 
seeking  new  opportunities  of  service.  As  our  Sena- 
tor he  will  still  belong  to  the  State  but  he  will  also 
serve  the  Nation — as  the  friend  of  human  rights.  But 
to-night  we  can  still  claim  him  affectionately  as  our 
Governor.  We  can  greet  him,  Citizens  all,  as  the 
greatest  of  American  Governors,  Hiram  Johnson." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PAUL   PERIGORD,    THE   SOLDIER-PRIEST 

DR.  ALBION  W.  SMALL  delivered  the  com- 
mencement address  at  his  old  alma  mater,  Colby  Col- 
lege, in  the  June  of  1917.  We  had  just  entered  the 
War,  after  hesitating  for  two  years  on  the  brink.  Dr. 
Small,  knowing  Prussia  as  few  Americans  know  it, 
and  consequently  convinced  of  the  profound  issues  in- 
volved in  this  War,  had  not  yet  wholly  escaped  from 
the  fear  which  for  two  years  had  oppressed  him  lest 
we  fail  the  world  in  its  crisis.  "Few  native  Ameri- 
cans/' said  he,  "have  more  or  weightier  reasons  for 
gratitude  to  Germany  than  I  have  been  accumulating 
for  nearly  forty  years.  None  can  be  more  willing  in 
every  possible  way  to  acknowledge  the  debt  which  can 
never  be  discharged.  And  yet !  And  yet !  This  will 
be  an  intolerable  world  until  the  Germans  have  once 
and  forever  recanted,  with  all  it  involves,  that  most 
hellish  heresy  that  has  ever  menaced  civilisation: 
There  is  no  God  but  power,  and  Prussia  is  its 
prophet !" 

Anxious  that  America  should  answer  with  all  her 
heart  and  all  her  soul  and  all  her  strength  the  great 
moral  summons  to  which  at  length  she  had  unstopped 
her  ears,  Dr.  Small  introduced  his  main  theme  by  a 

189 


190  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

beautiful  reference  to  Paul  Helie  Perigord,  as  fol- 
lows: 

At  the  first  meeting  with  my  class  of  graduate  stu- 
dents, on  the  opening  day  of  the  summer  quarter, 
1910,  one  face  held  my  attention  from  all  the  rest. 
At  the  time,  the  only  word  which  I  could  find  for 
my  impression  of  that  face  was  spectral.  It  was  the 
type  of  face  which  is  associated  in  my  imagination 
with  Savonarola  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  At  the 
end  of  the  hour  the  young  man  whose  face  was  so 
unusual  introduced  himself.  In  a  few  words  he  out- 
lined his  personal  history.  Educated  and  consecrated 
in  France  as  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  he  had  come 
to  this  country  with  the  intention  of  making  it  his 
home.  He  had  received  an  appointment  as  professor 
in  an  important  seminary  for  the  training  of  priests. 
With  the  approval  of  his  archbishop  he  had  decided  to 
devote  his  summer  vacations  to  further  academic 
work  in  a  subject  remote  from  that  of  his  professor- 
ship. 

Therewith  an  acquaintance  began  which  I  cherish 
as  among  the  most  notable  of  the  many  close  asso- 
ciations with  students  during  my  thirty-six  years  of 
college  and  university  teaching.  For  three  successive 
summer  quarters  this  young  man  returned  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  and  at  the  end  of  the  third  quar- 
ter he  received  his  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  Mean- 
while I  had  found  in  him  one  of  the  choicest  spirits 
it  has  ever  been  my  privilege  to  know.  He  revealed 
himself  to  me  in  ways  which  I  had  never  supposed 
possible  to  a  priest  with  a  layman,  and  especially  with 
a  Protestant.  In  this  acquaintance  I  learned,  what 
even  Bobby  Burns  may  not  have  suspected,  that — "A 
priest's  a  man  for  a'  that."  If  nothing  had  deflected 
the  course  of  my  friend's  career,  his  native  and  ac- 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST     191 

quired  mental  and  spiritual  qualities  would  doubtless 
have  assured  him  high  rank  among  American  Catho- 
lics. 

Early  in  the  autumn  of  1914  I  was  startled,  but  not 
surprised,  to  learn  that  immediately  after  the  German 
violation  of  Belgium  my  friend  had  renounced  his 
ecclesiastical  prospects,  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  with 
all  speed,  and  had  enlisted  as  a  soldier  of  France.  At 
long  intervals  he  sent  me  samples  of  the  laconic  postal- 
card  messages  permitted  to  soldiers:  He  was  well 
and  hoped  to  be  sent  to  the  front  soon;  he  had  been 
wounded,  but  was  well  again  and  hoping  to  rejoin 
his  company  in  the  trenches;  he  had  been  wounded 
again  and  probably  disqualified  for  further  fighting; 
he  had  regained  strength  enough  to  be  serving  as 
interpreter  at  staff  headquarters;  and  in  January  of 
this  year  (1917)  came  a  long  letter,  the  leading  theme 
of  which  was  this:  "Until  lately  I  have  felt  that  I 
had  no  desire  ever  to  see  my  adopted  country  again. 
But  I  have  reconsidered.  After  the  war  the  problem 
will  remain,  Can  America  save  her  soul?  I  now  in- 
tend to  return,  if  I  live,  after  I  can  render  no  more 
service  here  (in  France),  and  spend  the  rest  of  my 
life  trying  to  help  work  out  that  salvation." 

And  then  Dr.  Small  adds: 

"This  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ,  detailed  for  service 
at  the  French  front  of  the  Army  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace,  was  right.  For  Americans,  everything  else  in 
the  present  world-crisis  is  incidental  to  the  problem: 
Will  America  evade  or  accept  the  moral  issue  which 
Germany  has  forced  upon  the  world,  and  thus  lose  or 
save  her  soul?"* 

1  "Americans  and  the  World  Crisis,"  A.  W.  Small,  in  'Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  XXIII,  No.  2,  pp.  146-147. 


192  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Thanks  be  to  God,  America  has  accepted  the  moral 
issue  involved  in  the  Great  War.  She  has  saved  her 
soul.  For  a  year,  in  every  part  of  this  immense  coun- 
try, I  have  seen  the  spiritual  thermometer  of  our  peo- 
ple steadily  rising,  until  now  it  is  at  blood  heat.  And 
hardly  any  man  has  contributed  more  to  this  result 
than  the  young  Savonarola  of  France  who  intended, 
had  we  not  gone  into  the  War,  to  become  a  missioner 
to  us,  when  it  should  close,  in  behalf  of  our  national 
soul. 

The  French  High  Commission  brought  him  to 
America,  after  his  last  terrible  wounding,  in  1917;  and 
gave  his  services  free  of  charge  to  the  Committee  on 
Public  Information.  Co-operating  with  the  Speakers' 
Bureau  of  this  Committee,  the  Council  of  Defense 
sent  Perigord  to  the  War  Conferences  organised 
throughout  the  country,  of  which  I  have  already  told. 
Of  the  countless  valuable  experiences  that  came  to  me 
out  of  my  field-agent's  year,  the  experience  of  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  and  finally  of  intimate  friend- 
ship, is  what  I  value  most  highly. 

He  is  thirty-five  years  old  now,  and  he  came  to  this 
country  when  twenty.  Not  content  with  his  graduate 
work  at  Chicago  and  other  American  universities,  he 
was  studying  at  Harvard  when  news  came  that  France 
was  invaded.  A  native  of  Orleans,  this  ardent  lover 
of  France  literally  left  his  books  scattered  open  on  his 
study  table,  and  caught  the  first  ship  sailing  for  Eu- 
rope after  war  was  declared.  Finding,  on  arrival  in 
France,  no  chaplaincies  vacant,  he  at  once  enlisted  in 
the  infantry,  thinking  that  the  men  in  the  trenches 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST    193 

might  be  those  that  would  chiefly  need  succour. 
"Father  Perigord"  indeed  he  became  to  the  boys  of  his 
regiment,  this  priest  who  enlisted  as  a  private. 

Boys  they  were  in  very  truth :  ranging  from  eighteen 
to  twenty-four.  He  has  spoken  in  all  of  our  States, 
and  no  one  that  heard  him  can  forget  his  story  of 
these  French  boys  at  Verdun. 

"You  remember  the  German  Crown  Prince,"  he 
quaintly  asks;  "that  great  Prince,  who  so  far  had 
taken  only  portraits  and  furniture  from  French  dwell- 
ings and  castles,  but  decided  that  he  would  now  take 
a  city  ?  He  thought  it  would  be  nice  to  take  it  on  our 
French  national  day,  July  14;  very  thoughtful  of  him! 
But  we  decided  to  do  all  we  could  to  make  it  hard  for 
him.  For  three  days  and  three  nights  before  his  at- 
tack there  was  the  most  terrible  shelling;  then  wave 
after  wave  of  gas,  to  kill  those  who  had  not  been 
caught  by  the  shelling.  You  know  what  a  brigade  is : 
two  regiments  of  three  thousand  soldiers  each.  Well, 
early  on  the  morning  of  July  13  these  six  thousand 
boys,  from  eighteen  to  twenty-four  years  old,  knelt 
down  to  receive  my  blessing ;  and  it  was  a  solemn  mo- 
ment, for  I  knew  that  many  of  them  would  never  re- 
turn, and  I  did  not  know  whether  I  myself  should 
return  or  not. 

"About  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  July  13  the 
first  unit  of  the  German  attack  charged  up  the  hill  of 
Verdun;  but  we  charged  down  on  them  and  drove 
them  back.  At  noon  a  new  unit  charged ;  and  the  boys 
drove  them  back  also.  At  three  o'clock  a  fresh  unit 
charged ;  and  the  boys  were  so  tired  that  an  entire  Ger- 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

man  company  entered  the  ditches  of  the  fort.  Then 
our  General  sent  for  me,  and  he  said,  'What  shall  we 
do?  The  reserves  cannot  come  until  five  o'clock,  and 
the  Germans  are  in  the  ditches  of  the  fort!'  I  said: 
'You  come  see  the  boys,  General;  they  are  all  ready 
to  die  for  France,  and  France  can  ask  no  more  of  her 
sons.  Let  us  charge  once  more.' 

"So  we  charged  down  the  hill,  and  we  took  the 
German  company  prisoners,  those  whom  we  did  not 
kill ;  and  at  five  o'clock  the  reserves  came,  and  the  city 
of  Verdun  was  forever  saved. 

"So  the  Crown  Prince,  who  had  his  mail  sent  to 
Verdun,  had  to  have  it  sent  back  again,  with  the  no- 
tice, 'Has  not  yet  arrived!'  But  of  the  six  thousand 
boys  who  received  my  blessing  that  morning  only  fif- 
teen hundred  were  left;  and  the  first  thing  they  did 
was  to  ask  for  a  thanksgiving  service,  kneeling  down 
there,  because  their  lives  had  been  spared.  And  yet 
people  sometimes  say  that  France  is  a  faithless  na- 
tion!" 

It  was  at  Vimy  Ridge  that  Lieutenant  Perigord  re- 
ceived his  commission,  on  the  field,  under  the  most 
dramatic  conditions.  He  tells  of  it  with  the  most 
perfect  modesty,  and  by  request  of  our  Secretary  of 
War.  Mr.  Baker  told  him  that  there  is  only  one 
trouble  with  our  soldiers,  and  that  is,  they  all  want 
to  be  officers;  none  of  them  wish  to  be  privates.  The 
distinguished  Irishman,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  happened  to 
be  present,  and  he  remarked : 

"Why,  Mr.  Secretary,  that  is  just  like  the  Irish; 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST     195 

we  have  never  been  able  to  get  up  a  band  in  Ireland, 
because  all  the  musicians  want  to  be  leaders." 

It  was  at  Vimy  Ridge  that  the  Germans  used  gas 
for  the  first  time,  and  their  victims  happened  to  be  the 
Canadians.  The  Canadians  had  no  masks,  and  so 
some  of  them  ran  away.  But  when  the  British  and 
Australians  teased  them,  the  Canadians  answered: 

"Oh,  that  is  all  very  well ;  but  the  Germans  know  our 
mettle,  and  they  know  that  when  they  want  to  whip 
us  they  have  to  give  us  gas  first !" 

In  those  early  days  the  French  officers  still  wore 
their  gay  uniforms,  instead  of  the  "horizon  blue" 
that  now  melts  into  the  landscape.  They  made  daz- 
zling targets,  and  as  the  Germans  gave  orders  to  shoot 
the  officers  first,  many  of  them  were  shot  down.  Of 
the  sixty-two  officers  promoted  with  the  Lieutenant 
only  two  are  now  on  active  duty;  the  others  have  all 
been  killed  or  otherwise  put  out  of  action. 

At  Vimy  Ridge,  when  the  German  Imperial  Guard 
broke  through  the  French  lines,  the  company  in  which 
Perigord  was  a  private,  being  billeted  in  a  town  near 
by,  happened  to  become  the  leading  company  in  re- 
sisting the  German  charge.  His  Captain,  shot  through 
the  right  lung,  handed  him  his  sword,  and  told  him 
to  take  command  of  the  company — a  sword  which 
the  Captain  himself,  the  last  remaining  officer  of  the 
company,  had  received  from  his  dying  officer  at  the 
Marne.  So  Perigord  summoned  the  boys  to  another 
charge,  and  "because  these  boys  were  so  brave  and 
daring,"  they  attacked  the  Germans  successfully  and 
brought  back  with  them  all  that  was  left  of  that  Im- 


196  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

perial  Guard  unit.  Then  when  the  General  next  came 
riding  along  he  said : 

"Where  are  the  officers,  and  whence  this  sword?" 

"So  I  told  him  how  I  had  received  the  sword,  and 
then  he  said  to  me,  very  graciously: 

"  'Well,  my  friend,  you  keep  the  sword,  and  you 
keep  the  company.' 

"So  that  is  how  I  got  my  commission;  and  your 
Secretary  of  War  has  asked  me  to  say  wherever  I  go 
that  he  has  a  commission  for  any  Sammie  that  does 
the  same." 

Lieutenant  Perigord,  by  the  way,  confirms  the  in- 
teresting story  of  the  French  origin  of  this  word  Sam- 
mie. The  French  first  called  our  soldiers  "Teddies" ; 
but  when  our  troops  began  to  disembark  in  large  num- 
bers the  French  people  called  out  eagerly: 

"Les  amis!  les  amis!" 

The  American  boys,  none  too  sure  of  their  French, 
mistook  the  crowd's  pronunciation  of  "friends"  for 
a  new  nickname,  "Sammy";  it  amused  them,  and  is 
rapidly  embedding  itself  in  the  new  international  war 
language  with  "Tommy"  and  "poilu"  and  "boche." 

I  am  not  sure  but  that  the  most  beautiful  story 
Perigord  tells  (and  he  keeps  it  for  rare  occasions)  is 
of  Joan  of  Arc  and  her  voices.  The  American  troops, 
as  he  says,  have  been  assigned  to  the  sector  of  Lor- 
raine, because  the  French  people  like  to  give  the  United 
States  the  best  of  everything.  "When  we  sent  you 
one  of  our  Generals  to  visit  you  we  did  not  send  Pe- 
tain  or  Castelnau;  we  sent  you  Field  Marshal  Joffre." 

And  so  in  the  same  way  they  have  given  us  the 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST     197 

sector  of  Lorraine,  with  the  Valley  of  Domremy  in 
it,  because  they  thought  we  should  like  to  be  charged 
with  the  guardianship  of  the  home  of  Joan  of  Arc. 
Then  Perigord  adds,  with  a  twinkle: 

"Besides,  we  think  that  when  the  American  boys 
give  Lorraine  back  to  us,  it  will  be  a  good  deal  larger 
than  when  we  gave  it  to  them!" 

Well,  two  Sammies  were  idly  discussing,  one  day, 
in  skeptical  fashion,  the  story  of  Joan  and  her  voices. 
"Do  you  think  she  really  heard  them?"  one  of  them 
asked  of  the  other.  "No";  he  was  sure  it  was  only 
a  sweet  old  story,  the  other  replied. 

But  just  then  a  French  officer  came  riding  along, 
and  one  of  the  Americans  called  out  to  him : 

"How  about  Joan  of  Arc  and  her  voices?  Do  you 
think  she  really  heard  them?" 

"But,  yes!"  smiled  back  the  French  officer — for  it 
happened  that  just  as  the  question  was  asked  the  clear 
notes  of  an  American  bugle  were  heard  as  the  Amer- 
ican troops  came  marching  down  the  Vale  of  Dom- 
remy: "Listen!  there  are  her  voices  now!" 

And  so  these  people  of  exquisite  sentiment,  as  of 
unsurpassable  valour,  call  America  their  new  Joan  of 
Arc. 

Perhaps  equally  beautiful  is  that  letter  which  Peri- 
gord frequently  reads  to  his  audiences,  written  by 
Odette  Gastinel,  a  thirteen-year-old  school  girl  in 
France,  to  the  children  of  New  York.  It  has  to  do 
with  the  tiny  river  of  Yser,  on  the  sides  of  which 
French  and  Germans  lined  up  in  battle  array  early  in 


198  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  War,  facing  one  another;  and  here  is  his  trans- 
lation : 

"It  was  only  a  little  river,  almost  a  brook.  It  was 
called  the  Yser.  One  could  talk  from  one  side  to  the 
other  without  raising  one's  voice,  and  the  birds  could 
fly  over  it  with  one  sweep  of  their  wings.  And  on  the 
two  banks  there  were  millions  of  men,  the  one  group 
turned  to  the  other,  eye  to  eye.  But  the  distance 
which  separated  them  was  greater  than  the  stars  in  the 
sky;  it  was  the  distance  which  separates  right  from 
injustice. 

"The  ocean  is  so  great  that  the  sea-gulls  do  not 
care  to  cross  it.  During  seven  days  and  seven  nights 
the  great  steamships  of  America,  going  at  full  speed, 
drive  through  the  deep  waters,  before  the  lighthouses 
of  France  come  into  view.  But  from  one  side  to  the 
other  the  hearts  are  touching." 

Perigord  believes  that  the  last  weeks  of  July,  1918, 
shall  mean  more  to  the  American  people  than  any 
other  period  in  our  history  since  the  Civil  War.  Then 
it  was  that  our  stalwart  soldiers,  clean  of  limb,  clear 
of  eye,  surpassed  our  fondest  hopes  and  dreams  of 
them;  showing  the  mettle  of  their  grandsires;  driving 
against  the  German  lines  with  a  verve  and  a  dash, 
an  audacity  and  intelligent  resourcefulness,  and — 
above  all — with  an  unflinching  courage,  that  atoned 
(at  least  against  weary  and  battle-worn  troops)  for 
lack  of  experience  and  training.  This  astonishing 
spectacle  gave  Europe,  including  even  the  Germans, 
a  new  view  of  us,  enormously  enlarging  our  prestige. 
It  infused  fresh  blood  into  France.  But  beyond  this — 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST    199 

it  gave  us  ourselves  a  new  self-respect,  and  will  bring 
us  a  new  lease  of  life. 

Our  boys  are  sometimes  too  impetuous.  Instead  of 
timing  themselves  to  the  slow  gait  necessary  so  as 
not  to  reach  their  own  barrage  ahead  of  time,  they 
are  likely  to  go  "on  the  jump,"  and  thus  encounter 
the  danger  of  military  suicide.  One  day,  after  fre- 
quent remonstrances  to  the  American  officer  whom 
he  was  guiding  with  American  troops  on  the  march 
to  their  first  barrage,  a  French  officer  lost  his  temper, 
and  called  out: 

i 

"Can't  you  hold  back  your  men  ?" 

Whereupon  the  exasperated  American  officer  re- 
torted : 

"Hold  them  back,  hell !  These  troops  are  from  Kan- 
sas!" 

The  Lieutenant  can  be  most  amusing.  Who  that 
heard  it  can  forget  his  daring  story  of  "the  delousing 
hospital"  ? 

"We  take  care  of  your  boys  now,  but  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  War  there  were  hardships.  I  suppose 
that  for  the  first  three  years  of  the  War  I  did  not  sleep 
in  a  bed  more  than  forty  times.  And  for  twenty-one 
days  I  had  to  go  without  washing  even  my  hands.  I 
told  that  to  a  little  boy  in  Kansas  and  he  said :  'My ! 
weren't  you  lucky?'  But  we  were  not  lucky;  for  if 
you  should  go  twenty-one  days  without  washing  you 
would  soon  have  about  yourselves  a  good  deal  more 
company  than  you'd  ever  care  for.  And  so  we  had 
to  establish  delousing  hospitals.  The  first  boys  who 
came  back  from  them  told  wonderful  stories:  they 


200  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

had  had  clean  beds  to  sleep  in,  and  good  food,  and 
rest;  a  whole  week's  vacation.  So  all  the  boys  wanted 
to  go  to  the  delousing  hospital.  But  in  order  to  go 
you  have  to  qualify;  there  was  an  examination!  So 

the  boys  that  hadn't  any, would  ask  the  others: 

'Have  you  got  some?  Won't  you  give  me  a  couple?' 
But  the  boys  that  had  them  became  wise,  and  bye-and- 
bye  they  said:  'Oh,  I'm  not  giving  them  away;  I'm 
selling  them !'  And  so  it  is  we've  had  to  stop  sending 
the  boys  to  a  delousing  hospital!" 

Amusing,  too,  is  his  story  of  General  Pershing  and 
the  mamselle  taxi-driver,  which  he  tells  to  show,  good- 
humouredly,  how  late  we  were  getting  in — "but,  thanks 
to  God,  not  too  late!" 

They  have  women  chauffeurs  now  in  Paris,  because 
there  are  not  men  enough  to  work  and  fight,  too.  So 
General  Pershing  was  standing  one  day,  watch  in 
hand,  waiting  for  mamselle  of  the  taxi;  to  whom, 
when  at  length  she  whirled  up,  he  said : 

"Mademoiselle,  you  are  three  minutes  late!" 

Whereupon  the  little  lady,  smiling  sweetly,  said  to 
him: 

"But,  General!  you  were  three  years  late!" 

Perigord  almost  invariably  begins  his  address  by 
telling  of  what  the  French  people  call  "the  best  speech 
of  the  War";  when  Pershing,  at  Lafayette's  tomb, 
made  no  oration,  but  merely  bowed  his  head  and  said 
simply : 

"Lafayette!  we  are  here!" 

God  knows  we  came  none  too  soon.  France  has 
mobilised  seven  million  men;  if  we  mobilised  in  pro- 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST     201 

portion  we  should  call  nearly  eighteen  million  troops 
to  the  colours.  Of  these  seven  million  Frenchmen 
1,400,000  are  slain!  Should  these  dead  pass  across 
the  stage,  four  abreast,  and  marching  at  regular  mili- 
tary gait,  it  would  take  them  twelve  days  and  twelve 
nights  to  pass  by.  And  yet,  so  strong  is  the  spirit  of 
the  women  of  France,  that  one  striking  incident  may 
be  cited  as  typical  of  many.  Perigord  happened  to  be 
serving  as  colour-bearer  while  his  regiment  marched 
through  a  village.  An  old  woman  ran  out  from  the 
crowd,  knelt  on  the  ground,  and  buried  her  face  in 
the  folds  of  the  flag,  kissing  its  fringe. 

"What  is  it,  mother?"  gently  asked  the  Colonel  of 
the  regiment  as  Perigord  came  to  a  pause  with  the 
flag. 

Then  she  handed  the  Colonel  a  letter,  which  she 
had  just  received,  telling  of  the  death  of  her  fourth 
and  last  child  on  the  battlefield ;  and  she  was  a  widow. 
Explaining  her  strange  act  in  checking  the  colour- 
bearer,  she  uttered  the  supremely  beautiful  words: 

"I  have  given  all  to  France ;  her  flag  is  my  only  love ; 
but  how  proud  I  am  of  my  flag!" 

The  French  love  the  American  flag,  now,  second 
only  to  their  own.  Perigord  tells  of  the  little  girl  in 
Philadelphia,  where  our  very  first  flag  was  made, 
making  an  American  flag  herself  and  sending  it  over 
to  France.  Paris  claimed  it ;  and  affixed  it  to  the  dome 
of  the  City  Hall,  above  the  flags  of  the  other  Allies, 
above  the  French  flag  itself — and  then  Paris  said  to 
the  rest  of  the  world :  "The  great  battle  for  democ- 
racy is  about  to  be  won!" 


202  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

While  always  paying  an  eloquent  tribute  to  Presi- 
dent Wilson  as  the  world-spokesman  of  democracy, 
this  Soldier-Priest,  loyal  to  all  the  facts  of  our  recent 
history,  tells  his  audiences  without  flinching  what  they 
thought  "over  there"  about  the  phrase,  "Too  proud  to 
fight."  Nor  does  he  forget  a  tribute  to  Roosevelt  as 
the  sturdy  apostle  of  preparedness  and  as  "the  ideal 
American  father." 

The  tensest  part  of  his  speech  is  always  toward  its 
conclusion,  when  you  can  almost  hear,  as  it  were,  the 
excited  pulsebeats  of  his  audience,  and  detect  their 
nervous  pallour,  as  Perigord  fearlessly  tells  us  that  had 
we  not  entered  the  War  we  never  again  could  have 
sung  of  America  as  "the  home  of  the  brave,"  nor  yet 
as  "the  land  of  the  free." 

"Oceans  to-day  are  not  barriers,  they  are  bridges. 
And  if  the  British  navy  were  not  standing  to-day  in 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  French  soldiers  dying 
— you  cannot  imagine  the  devastation  that  would  come 
to  your  shores! 

"I  know  how  dreamers  have  told  you — in  good 
faith,  but  dangerous  dreamers  nevertheless — that  you 
should  have  waited  till  your  shores  were  invaded, 
when  ten  million  men  would  spring  to  their  feet.  But 
ten  million  men,  my  friends,  are  a  crowd,  a  mob,  to  be 
mown  down  like  grass  before  the  scythe  of  war. 

"Besides,  have  you  not  been  invaded,  many  times? 
— not  materially,  but  spiritually,  which  is  far  worse. 
Belgium  was  materially  invaded,  but  Belgium  has 
never  been  spiritually  invaded.  Is  it  not  true  that 
these  invasions  over  here  went  so  far  that  the  German 


PAUL  PERIGORD,  THE  SOLDIER-PRIEST    203 

ambassador  in  Washington  dared  pluck  three  stars 
from  your  flag,  and  hand  them  over  to  a  would-be 
enemy  on  your  Southern  border,  offering  to  finance 
the  war,  and  intriguing  with  your  powerful  neighbour 
on  the  East  to  attack  you  on  those  Eastern  shores 
while  planning  another  attack  on  you  from  the  West? 
This  is  not  imagination,  this  is  history ;  and  far  worse 
you  shall  know  after  this  War  is  over. 

"But,  be  proud,  Americans !  for  you  have  redeemed 
yourselves,  and  can  hand  down  to  your  children  that 
flag,  the  purest  of  all  the  flags  of  the  world,  unsullied 
of  the  stain  that  forevermore  must  have  dishonoured 
it  had  you  not  heeded  the  summons  to  duty. 

"And,  believe  me,  the  War  shall  not  be  ended  until 
it  is  ended  right.  What  you  see  now  in  Europe  is  but 
the  first  act  of  a  play — and  this  is  the  voice  of  every 
single  man  in  the  trenches! — the  first  act  of  a  play 
that  will  not  be  over  until  the  armies  of  the  Allies  have 
crossed  the  Rhine!" 

At  Hartford,  where  we  had  our  last  meeting  to- 
gether, this  flaming  evangel  of  France  closed  his  ap- 
peal with  these  "words  from  the  dead,"  written  by  a 
soldier  in  the  trenches : 

In  Flanders  fields  the  poppies  grow 
Between  the  crosses,  row  by  row, 
That  mark  our  place;  and  in  the  sky 
The  larks,  still  bravely  singing,  fly, 
Scarce  heard  amid  the  guns  below. 
We  are  the  dead.     Short  days  ago 
We  loved,  felt  dawn,  saw  sunsets  glow,— 
Loved  and  were  loved.    To-day  we  lie 
In  Flanders  fields. 


204  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Take  up  our  quarrel  with  the  foe! 
To  you,  from  falling  hands,  we  throw 
The  torch.    Be  yours  to  hold  it  high ! 
If  ye  break  faith  with  us  who  die 
We  shall  not  sleep,  though  poppies  grow 
In  Flanders  fields. 

He  made  his  speech  that  evening  in  Hartford  under 
great  stress  of  emotion;  for  just  before  we  left  the 
Club  for  the  immense  mass  meetings  (three  thousand 
people  in  the  theatre  and  two  thousand  outside),  he 
showed  me  a  letter  that  was  awaiting  him  on  our  re- 
turn from  our  tour  through  New  England,  advising 
him  that  the  eight  lads  he  loved  most  dearly,  the 
eight  lads  he  had  trained  with  fatherly  love  and  sol- 
dierly devotion  to  be  officers,  had  every  one  been  slain 
in  the  recent  German  advance.  There  was  another 
letter,  too,  summoning  him  to  return  to  his  regiment, 
the  fourteenth  infantry,  within  two  weeks.  Although 
his  last  wounds  had  been  so  terrible  that  for  a  month 
he  was  completely  blind  and  for  three  months  totally 
paralysed,  he  had  felt,  here  of  late,  that  he  was  well 
enough  to  go  back  to  the  trenches,  and  had  himself 
requested  reassignment.  So  he  is  answering  the  voices 
of  his  dead. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AMERICA  TO-MORROW, 

TALLEYRAND  once  said  that  there  is  a  force  in 
the  world  greater  than  all  kings,  all  cabinets,  all  par- 
liaments combined,  and  that  force  is  public  opinion. 

Talleyrand's  epigram  presupposes  the  organisation 
of  public  opinion.  That  is  precisely  what  a  democracy 
is — government  by  organised  public  opinion ;  "govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,"  * 
instead  of  government  by  a  caste,  a  camarilla,  or  a 
Kaiser. 

There  was  never  a  time  in  our  history  when  it  was 
so  needful  to  remind  ourselves  of  this  fact,  or  when 
it  has  been  more  important  for  the  Nation  to  nerve  its 
resolution  with  a  consciousness  of  what  public  opinion 
can  do.  The  President's  most  convincing  tribute  to 
its  power  is  not  found  in  such  eloquent  phrases  as 
"pitiless  publicity,"  with  context,2  but  in  the  remark- 
able changes  in  his  own  point  of  view  toward  the  War. 
And,  by  the  same  token,  that  insidious  but  widespread 
influence  toward  an  inconclusive  peace  that  constitutes 

1  Lincoln  in  uttering  those  great  simple  words  did  not  em- 
phasise the  three  prepositions,  he  emphasised  with  ever-increas- 
ing emphasis  the  word  "people." 

"See,  for  example,  "The  New  Freedom,"  p.  115,  ff. 

205 


206  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

our  gravest  menace  at  this  moment  will  vanish  if  an 
intelligent  and  determined  public  opinion  be  formed  in 
this  country  to  demand  that  no  peace  shall  be  made 
with  Germany  until  the  objects  for  which  we  and  the 
Allies  are  fighting  have  been  unquestionably  and  per- 
manently obtained.  By  all  means  peace  must  then 
be  fair  and  just  to  all;  America,  when  the  time  comes, 
must  emulate  her  great  Father  by  being  "first  in  peace" 
— but,  until  that  time  is  clearly  come,  public  opinion 
must  sternly  keep  her  "first  in  war." 

The  formation  of  public  opinion  depends  of  course 
on  freedom  of  loyal  speech,  on  the  right  of  constructive 
criticism.  As  Mr.  Elihu  Root  pointed  out  in  his  great 
address  on  "The  Duties  of  the  Citizen,"  debate  on  the 
subject  whether  our  entrance  into  the  War  be  right 
or  wrong  must  cease  the  moment  we  enter.  "A  nation 
which  declares  war  and  goes  on  discussing  whether  it 
ought  to  have  declared  war  or  not  is  impotent,  para- 
lysed, imbecile."  On  the  other  hand,  constructive  criti- 
cism in  behalf  of  winning  the  War  is  enjoined  by  a 
public  duty  quite  as  imperative  as  that  which  inhibits 
disloyalty.  President  Wilson  can  "imagine  no  greater 
disservice"  than  to  deny  to  the  people  of  a  free  Re- 
public like  our  own  their  indisputable  prerogatives,  and 
says :  "While  exercising  the  great  powers  of  the  office 
I  hold,  I  would  regret  in  the  crisis  like  the  one  through 
which  we  are  now  passing  to  lose  the  benefit  of  pa- 
triotic and  intelligent  criticism." 

Now,  America  is  afflicted  "in  spots"  with  a  malady 
of  intellectual  hook-worm,  complicated  with  pernicious 
moral  anaemia,  that  superinduces  in  its  somewhat  nu- 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  207 

merous  victims  (our  self-styled  "Intelligentsia")  a 
contagious  preachment  against  the  hatred  and  denun- 
ciation of  evil.  If  a  personal  reference  is  pardonable, 
let  me  illustrate  by  the  fact  that  I  myself  have  been 
criticised  by  one  or  two  doctrinaire  journals  as  a 
"hater"  of  Hearstism.  Of  course  I  hate  Mr.  Hearst's 
works,  and  all  his  ways;  if  I  did  not  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  myself.  And  it  is  a  very  insidious  sort 
of  deviltry  indeed  that  teaches  that  to  hate  evil  is 
wrong.  I  find  nothing  of  this  sort  of  teaching  in  the 
New  Testament,  whose  pages  are  of  much  ruddier 
hue  than  Mr.  George  Creel's  "Quatrains  of  Christ." 
The  Son  of  Man  blazed  out  in  righteous  wrath  against 
all  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places;  never  was 
there  such  a  master  of  denunciation  and  invective  as 
He.  He  hated  Pharisaism  and  fraud  and  slimy  deceit 
with  all  the  ardour  of  His  holy  soul;  and,  if  St.  John 
is  any  true  interpreter  of  His  spirit,  He  hated  the 
Laodiceans,  who  were  neither  cold  nor  hot,  and  so 
He  would  have  spued  them  out  of  His  mouth! 

We  need,  surely,  not  an  influx  of  white  corpuscles 
into  the  veins  of  our  body  politic,  but,  more  than 
almost  anything  else  in  the  world,  an  infusion  of 
red-blooded  courage.  We  need,  too,  now  as  always, 
that  acute  "knowledge  of  good  and  evil"  acquired 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden  itself,  and  any  subtle  propa- 
ganda to  blunt  the  edge  of  this  knowledge  is  a  sin- 
ister menace  to  our  national  life.  It  is  something  new 
in  the  history  of  the 'world,  this  pernicious  anaemia 
of  the  spirit.  Sentimentalists  of  both  sexes  fall  an 
easy  prey  to  its  soft  infection;  and  Uncle  Sam  is  in- 


208  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

deed  a  sick  giant  unless  the  tonic  of  an  iron  public  will 
shall  be  the  antidote  to  its  poison. 

I  call  attention  to  this  pious  fraud  that  infects  some 
of  our  political  writings,  for  the  reason  that  America 
to-morrow  will  require  as  never  before  to  exercise  a 
courageous  discrimination  regarding  its  public  men 
and  public  measures.  If  such  men  as  Vardaman  and 
Hardwick  and  Blease  are  to  sit  in  the  Senate  from  the 
South,  or  if  La  Follette  is  returned  from  Wisconsin 
or  Gronna  from  North  Dakota  or  Reed  from  Mis- 
souri, then  do  not  the  voters  in  those  States  thereby 
prove  their  unfitness  for  the  critical  needs  of  the  hour? 

Public  discrimination  must  exercise  itself  to  set  bet- 
ter men  in  our  seats  of  authority,  and  it  must  also 
accept  the  stern  task  of  improving  our  legislative  ma- 
chinery. Of  the  last  regular  session  of  Congress  be- 
fore we  entered  the  War  one  of  our  national  reviews 
wrote  so  trenchantly  that  its  words  cut  themselves 
into  the  memory  by  the  very  force  of  their  whiplash 
hyperbole. 

"It  was  garrulous,  wasteful,  amorphous,  frivolous 
and  foolish,"  wrote  Mr.  Walter  Lippmann  of  that 
Congress.1  "It  wasted  money  like  a  drunken 
sailor  and  time  like  a  babbling  idiot.  It  could  not 
think,  it  would  not  imagine,  it  could  not  organise,  it 
could  not  act.  It  squabbled  over  trifles,  grunted  and 
rooted,  and  left  the  country  in  chaos.  It  spoiled  what- 
ever it  touched,  obstructed  everything  it  was  asked  to 
assist,  attended  to  everybody's  business  but  its  own. 
It  conducted  raiding  parties  against  the  treasury, 

1  The  New  Republic,  March  10,  1917. 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  209 

against  the  Administration,  it  died  with  the  curse  of 
a  nation  upon  it,  a  soiled  and  debauched  thing." 

Anxious  to  correct  such  abuses,  this  critic  con- 
tinues : 

"No  mere  reform  which  introduces  cloture  into  the 
Senate  rules  will  make  Congress  a  decent  instrument 
of  democracy.  The  evil  is  far  deeper,  arising  in  the 
last  analysis  from  the  Constitution  itself.  We  have 
tried  to  construct  a  Government  in  which  leadership 
is  divorced  from  responsibility,  a  Government  in 
which  those  who  make  the  laws  have  no  organic  rela- 
tion to  those  who  execute  them,  a  Government  in  which 
head,  heart  and  limbs  are  separate  bodies  without  in- 
ternal connection.  And  because  no  Government  is 
workable  on  that  principle,  we  have  seen  the  growth 
behind  the  legal  Government  of  a  party  system  which 
lives  as  a  parasite  upon  the  Government,  is  fed  by 
pork,  held  together  by  patronage;  which  has  created 
out  of  the  separation  of  powers  a  perilous  confusion 
of  powers.  The  thing  has  broken  down  at  last,  as 
all  observers  knew  it  would,  and  we  are  now  in  a  sit- 
uation where  only  the  most  revolutionary  changes  in 
the  congressional  system  can  save  representative  gov- 
ernment in  America." 

While  the  Congresses  succeeding  the  one  so  vio- 
lently criticised  have  been  vastly  better,  and  have  sup- 
ported the  Administration's  war  measures  without 
stint,  Americans  need  soberly  to  consider  these  sug- 
gestions of  Governmental  reform. 

Of  course  everything  that  is  written  of  "America 
to-morrow"  presupposes  that  we  win  the  present  War; 


210  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

for  if  the  Central  Powers  win,  democracy  will  perish 
from  the  earth.  A  democracy  is  not  necessarily  a  re- 
public ;  the  democracy  of  England  is  more  pliable  and 
responsive  than  our  own.  The  English-speaking  peo- 
ple originated  and  developed  the  democracy  of  modern 
times,  Runnymede  and  Marston  Moor  and  Bunker 
Hill  being  consecutive  milestones  in  its  progress,  Crom- 
well and  Washington  and  Lincoln  belonging  to  one 
unbroken  historical  succession.  But  the  French  I4th 
of  July  means  as  much  to  modern  democracy  as  our 
own  4th  of  July;  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  and  Cavour 
are  cousins  germane  to  the  great  English-speaking 
line ;  and  Japan,  with  constitutional  government,  is  be- 
coming progressively  democratic  in  spirit,  while  poor 
Russia  has  swung  for  the  moment  into  anarchy,  a 
pseudo-democracy  gone  mad.  You  have  a  complete 
institutional  antithesis  in  the  lining  up  of  this  War. 
Prussia?  So  long  ago  as  April  u,  1847,  Frederic 
William  IV.,  in  a  speech  from  the  Prussian  Throne, 
snapped  his  fingers  at  "all  written  constitutions"  as 
being  "only  scraps  of  paper."  So  recently  as  in  1914, 
in  his  Proclamation  to  the  Army  of  the  East,  William 
II.  declared:  "The  spirit  of  the  Lord  has  descended 
upon  ME  because  I  am  the  Emperor  of  the  Germans ! 
I  am  the  instrument  of  the  Almighty.  /  am  His  sword, 
His  agent!  Woe  and  death  to  all  those  who  shall 
oppose  MY  will !  Woe  and  death  to  those  who  do  not 
believe  in  MY  mission!  Woe  and  death  to  the  cow- 
ards! Let  them  perish,  all  the  enemies  of  the  Ger- 
man people!  God  demands  their  destruction,  God 
who,  by  MY  mouth,  bids  you  to  do  His  will !" 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW 

And  the  German  people  cried,  Amen!  while  the 
German  army  rushed  to  spread  with  fire  and  sword 
the  Kultur-gospel  of  this  new  Mahomet,  whose  mailed 
fist  seeks  to  strike  democracy  a  mortal  blow  upon 
the  heart. 

If  Germany  wins,  freedom  perishes,  the  individual 
is  enslaved  to  the  State.  One  of  the  most  learned  of 
German  scholars,  long  a  resident  but  never  a  citizen 
of  this  country,  in  comparing  their  and  our  theories 
of  government,  says: 

"For  the  German,  the  State  is  not  for  the  individ- 
uals, but  the  individuals  for  the  State.  It  is  the  same 
contrast  which  gives  to  every  realm  of  German  civili- 
sation its  deepest  meaning.  The  American  view  is 
that  science  and  art  and  law,  like  the  State,  exist  for 
the  good  of  the  individual  persons;  their  value  is  to 
serve  them  (the  people).  The  Germans  believe  that 
science  and  art  and  law  and  State  are  valuable  in 
themselves,  and  that  the  highest  glory  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  to  serve  those  eternal  values." 

It  is  significantly  added  that  "the  very  scope  of  the 
German  idea  can  afford  no  smaller  sphere  than  the 
world  itself" — a  world  in  which  the  individual  be- 
comes a  mere  cog  in  a  machine  more  remorseless  and 
more  insatiate  than  all  the  inhuman  Tamerlanes  of 
history. 

As  for  us — "we  must  be  free  or  die  who  speak  the 
tongue  that  Shakespeare  spoke  and  hold  the  faith  that 
Milton  held." 

If  Germany  wins,  democracy  vanishes,  liberty  per- 


312  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ishes  from  the  earth,  and  not  only  so,  but  the  Christian 
religion  itself  disappears.  The  Ten  Commandments 
will  then  make  way  for  the  "Ten  Iron  Command- 
ments of  the  German  Soldiers,"  formulated  and  pro- 
mulgated by  General  von  der  Goltz,  and  obeyed  re- 
morselessly by  German  soldiers  in  the  ravaged  fields 
of  France  and  the  ravished  homes  of  Belgium.  "Grow 
hard,  warriors!"  say  these  new  "iron  commandments" ; 
"The  soldier  must  be  hard !  It  is  better  to  let  a  hun- 
dred women  and  children  belonging  to  the  enemy  die 
of  hunger  than  to  let  a  single  German  soldier  suffer 
its  pangs."  With  modern  Prussia  the  beatitudes  have 
become  a  derision,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  a  laugh- 
ing-stock, the  1 3th  chapter  of  Corinthians  is  but  sound- 
ing brass  and  tinkling  cymbals,  and  the  iron  cross 
blasphemes  the  cross  of  Calvary.  Out  of  their  own 
mouths  do  we  judge  them.  The  spirit  even  of  Ger- 
man clergymen  is  fairly  expressed  by  what  Pastor  D. 
Baumgarten  said  in  exultation  over  the  Lusitania  in- 
cident: "Any  one  who  cannot  bring  himself  to  ap- 
prove from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania  .  .  .  and  give  himself  up  to  honest  joy 
at  this  victorious  exploit  of  German  defensive  power 
— such  an  one  we  deem  no  true  German." 

The  events  of  recent  months  renew  the  optimism 
that  we  had  all  but  lost  in  the  dark  latter  days  of  last 
March.  While  on  constant  guard  against  over-opti- 
mism, while  resolved  that  no  seeming  success  shall  lead 
us  to  abate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  endeavour  until  security 
shall  be  doubly  sure,  we  are  nevertheless  warranted 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW 

in  turning  again  to  the  prospect  of  a  world  set  free, 
a  new  world,  the  world  of  to-morrow,  far  different 
from  the  world  that  has  been.  Let  us  plan,  then,  to 
set  our  national  house  in  good  order  for  the  home- 
coming of  the  boys — two  years  hence  or  even  ten 
years  hence,  when  they  return  to  a  new  America. 

Of  one  thing- we  may  feel  very  certain:  they  will 
bring  with  them  an  expansive  and  regenerative  force 
that  America  stands  sorely  in  need  of.  It  is  a  thrilling 
thing  that  America  at  last  may  belong  to  the  world. 
Accustomed  as  we  have  been  to  ridicule  the  insularity 
of  England^  we  have  been  blind  to  the  fact  of  our 
own  continental,  colossal  provincialism,  compared  with 
which  "right  little,  tight  little"  England,  one  some- 
times thinks,  is  Cosmopolis  itself.  Our  great  teacher 
Shakespeare  has  taught  us  that  "there  is  some  soul 
of  goodness  in  things  evil,  would  men  observingly  dis- 
til it  out."  So  even  out  of  this  terrible  War,  if  it  ends 
aright,  there  will  come  marching  back  to  us  the  stal- 
wart builders  of  a  new  Republic — enriched  by  inten- 
sive experience,  ennobled  by  hardship  and  sacrifice, 
their  sympathies  deepened  by  a  common  suffering  with 
other  kindred  peoples  that  are  just  as  good  as  we  are, 
to  say  the  least ;  bringing,  let  us  trust,  a  new  explosive 
force  that  will  shatter  our  smug  and  complacent  pro- 
vincialism to  atoms,  and  so  set  us  free  to  be  neighbours 
to  the  world  of  our  kin.  It  is  true  of  nations  as  of 
men  that  whosoever  would  find  his  life  shall  lose  it. 
Hitherto  we  have  been  abiding  alone;  henceforth  we 
shall  have  life  more  abundantly  through  a  common 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

touch  with  our  spiritual  kin  among  mankind.  Just  as 
the  returning  Crusaders  of  Europe,  illumined  by  the 
educative  values  of  travel  and  inspired  by  sacrificial 
service  in  a  holy  cause,  were  precursors  of  the  great 
Renaissance,  so  let  us  hope  that  our  own  returning 
Crusaders  will  find  us  ready  for  some  mighty  Revival 
in  common  with  our  kin  across  the  sea. 

Already  we  clasp  hands  with  our  Mother  land.  The 
virtual  alliance  in  which  we  find  ourselves  with  Eng- 
land is  a  logical  conclusion  far  too  long  delayed.  Let 
me  repeat  that  it  is  only  the  shallowest  and  narrowest 
view  of  history  that  regards  our  Revolutionary  War 
as  other  than  one  in  the  long  sequence  of  the  revolts 
of  English-speaking  people  against  tyrants.  The 
American  colonists  were  predominantly  and  essentially 
Englishmen,  removed  merely  by  the  accident  of  dis- 
tance from  the  soil  enriched  by  the  blood  of  their 
fathers  as  they  fought  with  other  liberty-loving  Eng- 
lishmen to  set  up  milestones  along  the  path  they  helped 
to  blaze  in  behalf  of  Anglo-Saxon  democracy.  So  in 
that  war  that  we  call  our  own  Revolution  not  even 
Patrick  Henry  himself  was  more  eloquent  in  the  Amer- 
ican interest  than  Burke  and  Pitt  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, as  we  made  common  cause  with  those  fine  pa- 
triots against  the  Hanoverian  King  George  III.,  with 
his  petty  but  intolerable  tyrannies,  supported  by  his 
mercenary  Hessian  soldiers.  Just  as  we  claim  Hamp- 
den,  England  claims  Washington,  and  Yorktown  itself 
was  but  an  overseas  victory  for  British  democracy. 
We  are  bone  of  her  bone,  our  Mother  England;  our 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  215 

traditions  are  wrought  from  her  fibre,  as  our  speech 
is  a  gift  from  her  tongue.1 

1  Contemporary  "German-Americans"  may  read  to  advantage 
this  quaint  letter  written  in  1695  by  the  German  colonist  Pas- 
torius  to  his  children: 

"Dear  Children,  John,  Samuel  and  Henry  Pastorius :  Though 
you  are  of  high  Dutch  Parents,  yet  remember  that  your  father 
was  Naturalised,  and  ye  born  in  an  English  colony.  Conse- 
quently each  of  you  Anglus  Natus  an  Englishman  by  birth. 
Therefore  it  would  be  a  shame  for  you  if  you  should  be  ignorant 
of  the  English  Tongue,  the  Tongue  of  your  Countrymen;  but 
that  you  may  learn  the  better  I  have  left  a  book  for  you  both, 
and  commend  the  same  to  your  reiterated  perusal.  If  you 
should  not  get  much  of  the  Latin,  nevertheless  read  ye  the 
English  part  oftentimes  OVER  AND  OVER  AND  OVER. 
And  I  assure  you  that  Semper  aliquid  hcerabit." — Courteously 
furnished  by  Elsie  Singmaster,  who  said  in  a  letter  to  the 
author  (July  24,  1918)  : 

"The  loyalty  of  the  early  immigrants  is  shown  chiefly,  it  seems 
to  me,  by  their  active  participation  in  the  life  of  the  colonies. 
Pastorius  expresses  it  clearly  in  this  letter;  Conrad  Weiser 
showed  it  not  only  in  his  extraordinary  services  to  the  colony, 
but  in  various  recorded  expressions,  for  instance: 

"  'Permit  me  to  put  you  (the  German  settlers)  in  mind  that 
as  we  for  the  most  part  retired  into  this  country  for  peace 
and  safety's  sake  and  to  get  our  living  easier  than  in  Ger- 
many, we  not  only  have  obtained  our  ends  in  all  this,  but  we 
have  also  been  well  received  and  protected  by  the  governors 
of  this  province,  especially  by  the  present  governor,  and  it  is 
not  long  since  his  majesty  of  Great  Britain  by  an  act  of  his 
parliament  invested  us  (German)  Protestants  upon  very  easy 
terms  with  so  many  privileges  and  liberties  whatsoever  that  a 
native  born  Englishman  can  enjoy.' " 

"In  another  letter  he  expresses  his  admiration  for  English 
law. 

"I  see  no  evidence  that  even  the  resistance  of  the  'Pennsyl- 
vania Germans'  to  some  colonial  regulations  was  accompanied 
by  any  feeling  of  loyalty  toward  the  Fatherland  from  which 
they  had  fled.  That  the  Kaiser  should  ever  have  dreamed  that 


216  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1914,  I  happened  to  be  coming 
home  from  England — a  month  to  the  day  before  the 
Great  War  unexpectedly  opened.  As  passengers  will, 
the  travellers  on  that  ill-fated  Arabic  (later  torpedoed 
by  a  lawless  German  submarine)  arranged  a  4th  of 
July  celebration.  This  one  had  peculiar  significance, 
because  our  two  countries  were  celebrating  their  cen- 
tennial of  peace;  it  was  just  a  hundred  years  since  the 
signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent.  So,  as  my  own  trivial 
contribution  to  that  Anglo-American  evening  on  ship- 
board, I  wrote  a  few  verses  that  now  seem  to  me,  in 
spite  of  their  crudeness,  weighted  with  momentous 
meaning.  For  my  jingle  of  verses,  framed  as  they 
are  on  a  memory  of  the  Landseer  sculpture  of  lions  in 
Trafalgar  Square,  were,  although  I  did 'not  dream  of 
such  a  thing  then,  a  prophecy ;  and  surely  it  is  a  glori- 
ous "soul  of  goodness"  in  the  evil  of  this  War  that 
words  so  lightly  figurative  four  years  ago  have,  by 
this  War,  been  made  most  literal : 

the  descendants  of  these  voluntary  exiles  should  feel  loyalty 
toward  a  country  which  did  not  really  exist  in  1700  was  ab- 
surd. The  fact  that  they  continued  to  speak  German  had  no 
significance  for  his  cause. 

"I  know  of  'pro-Germans'  among  the  Pennsylvania  Ger- 
mans, but  they  are  few  and  lack  judgment  in  other  ways.  The 
Kaiser  would  be  dumbfounded  to  hear  himself  denounced  in 
his  own  tongue — though  perhaps  he  is  beginning  to  suspect 
now  the  real  state  of  affairs.  A  few  weeks  ago  an  acquaint- 
ance of  my  father  said  to  him  in  Pennsylvania  German,  'I  am 
appalled  when  I  think  of  my  boys  fighting  the  brutal  Ger- 
mans. You  and  I  know  what  the  foreign  Germans  who  have 
lived  in  this  village  are  like.' " 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  217 

The  lion  throned  in  his  island  home 
Looks  wistfully  out  to  sea 
With  a  touch  of  grace 
On  his  battle-scarred  face 
And  a  mellower  majesty 
As  he  broods  on  the  cubs 
That  have  fared  them  forth 
To  the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth- 
India,  Africa,  Canada, 
Australia,  and  Arctic  firth — 
But  chiefly  on  him  of  the  eldest  birth 
With  a  hemisphere  for  his  home 
Who  fought  his  sire 
With  passionate  ire 
And  set  up  a  rule  of  his  own. 

A  hundred  years  in  a  lion's  life 

Is  a  span,  could  he  speak  as  man; 

The  old  lion  deems  it  but  yesterday 

Since  the  rule  of  the  whelp  began; 

And  anger  dies  in  a  lion's  heart 

With  the  moment  that  gives  it  birth; 

So  the  old  sire  yearns  toward  the  lusty  cub 

That  conquered  half  of  the  earth. 

And  the  whelp,  who  a  hundred  years  agone 
In  heat  with  his  father  strove — 
His  heart  has  cooled ;  and  has  warmed  again, 
And  the  warmth  is  the  warmth  of  love. 

So  these  lions  who  guard  the  Atlantic  sea 
Have  vowed  o'er  its  bosom  vast 
That  blood  is  thicker  than  waters  be, 
And  sealed  a  truce  that  shall  last 
Till  men  with  mirth 
Shall  acclaim  one  birth — 


218  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"All  peoples  of  one  blood  be" — 
When  the  knowledge  of  God 
Shall  cover  the  earth 
As  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 


The  great  Englishman  Joseph  Chamberlain  prophet- 
ically said  of  us  in  1898:  "There  is  a  powerful  and 
generous  nation.  They  speak  our  language.  They 
are  bred  of  our  race.  Their  laws,  their  literature,  their 
standpoint  upon  every  question,  are  the  same  as  ours 
.  .  .  the  more  cordial,  the  fuller  and  the  more  definite 
these  arrangements  are,  with  the  consent  of  both  peo- 
ples, the  better  it  will  be  for  both  and  for  the  world ; 
and  I  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that,  terrible  as  war 
may  be,  even  war  itself  would  be  cheaply  purchased 
if,  in  a  great  and  noble  cause,  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  the  Union  Jack  should  wave  together  over  an 
Anglo-Saxon  Alliance." 

Of  course  we  should  not  limit  our  alliance  to  Eng- 
land ;  it  should  include  all  of  the  genuine  democracies 
of  the  world. 

Most  of  all  we  should  conclude  forever  an  insepar- 
able alliance  with  our  sister  Republic,  la  belle  France! 
It  is  a  "soul  of  goodness"  in  the  evil  of  this  War  that 
America,  long  blind,  is  at  last  awake  to  the  spiritual 
beauty  of  her  twin  sister  across  the  Atlantic.  "Friv- 
olous," "frail,"  even  "decadent,"  we  have  called  her; 
to  realise  now,  in  the  incandescent  light  of  this  War, 
that  what  we  called  frivolity  is  but  the  laughing,  rip- 
pling surface  of  a  nobility  as  deep  as  the  ocean — that 
what  we  called  frailty  was  but  her  gay  "camouflage" 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  219 

for  sinews  of  unbending  steel — and  that,  instead  of 
decadence,  France  has  since  1870  enjoyed  a  renais- 
sance, has  risen  and  climbed  and  stood  upon  glorious 
resurrection  heights  from  which  now  she  beckons,  and 
bids  us  to  climb  up  and  stand  at  her  side.  To  com- 
memorate the  centenary  of  our  independence  she  sent 
her  great  bronze  gift  across  the  water  and  stood  it  up 
in  New  York  harbour.  We  are  now  sending  our  boys 
by  the  million  to  aid  her  in  the  eternal  establishment 
of  her  own  independence,  and  to  aid  her  further  in  her 
gigantic  task  of  setting  up  on  the  watch-towers  of 
Europe  her  own  radiant  and  heroic  monument  of  lib- 
erty enlightening  the  world. 

Just  as  this  War  has  already  established  us  in  new 
international  relations,  in  new  relations  toward  people 
of  other  lands  separated  from  us  by  oceans,  so  when 
the  boys  come  marching  home  let  us  hope  they  will 
bring  with  them  a  new  intelligence  and  a  quickened 
spirit  that  will  inspire  us  to  fairer  and  more  intelli- 
gent relations  with  people  of  other  lands  that  seek 
whole-heartedly  to  become  naturalised  citizens  of  our 
own.  "In  the  last  decade,  over  10,000,000  immigrants 
entered  the  United  States  with  presumed  intent  to 
make  this  their  home  and  the  land  of  their  devotion. 
Three  millions  returned  to  Europe  after  completing 
varied  terms  of  labour,  and  of  the  seven  millions  re- 
maining, only  two  and  a  half  millions  have  given 
formal  evidence  of  any  desire  for  citizenship.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  seven  millions  have  never  learned  the 
English  language  [the  language  of  Washington  and 
Lincoln]  with  any  degree  of  mastery,  nor  is  the  money 


320  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

earned  by  this  army  of  foreigners  invested  in  the 
United  States  or  even  deposited  in  American  banks. 
In  some  years  the  amount  sent  abroad  by  aliens  has 
reached  the  huge  total  of  $300,000,000.  One-third 
quitting  the  land  that  was  to  have  been  their  home, 
two-thirds  holding  aloof  from  citizenship  and  common 
interest,  two-thirds  unable  or  unwilling  to  learn  the 
tongue  of  their  adopted  country,  and  the  great  ma- 
jority rushing  their  savings  back  to  Europe!  No 
record  of  failure  was  ever  written  so  plainly."  1 

The  melting-pot  has  not  been  melting.  Let  us  be 
sure  that  the  trouble  is  not  altogether  in  the  material 
that  has  poured  into  the  pot;  the  trouble  is  largely  in 
our  failure  to  feed  with  the  prepared  fuel  of  foresight 
that  flaming  warmth  of  brotherhood  which  alone  can 
melt  and  transmute  and  purify  many  peoples  into 
one,  and  make  true  our  motto,  "E  pluribus  unum." 
The  War  has  brought  us  to  a  sharp  national  conscious- 
ness of  the  menace  involved  in  huge  masses  of  un- 
assimilated  human  material;  it  must  quicken  our  na- 
tional conscience  to  action,  so  that  by  wisely  consid- 
ered laws  we  may  restrict  immigration  to  assimilable 
quantities,  and  then  protect  and  treat  in  a  spirit  of 
wise  fostering  brotherhood  the  so-called  aliens  ad- 
mitted. At  present,  commissaries  rob  them,  we  are 
told,  contractors  cheat  them,  and  even  the  courts  and 
the  lawyers  are  permitted  to  confuse  and  defeat  them 
when  they  have  recourse  to  our  institutions  for  justice. 
"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" — that  was  the  question 

"George   Creel  in  "The  Hopes  of   the   Hyphenated,"   in  the 
Century  Magazine,  1915. 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW 

of  Cain.  When  our  Crusaders  come  back  from  the 
front  let  us  hope  they  will  quicken  in  us  a  new  spirit. 
With  our  broader  international  vision  let  us  take  up 
that  fine  old  saying  of  the  Latin  poet  Terence :  "I  am 
a  human,  and  nothing  that  is  human  can  be  alien  to 
me" — and,  paraphrasing  it  to  apply  to  our  own  in- 
ternal internationalism,  take  as  our  motto  the  words: 
"I  am  an  American;  and  no  one  seeking  to  be  an 
American  can  be  an  alien  to  me." 

America  to-morrow  must  be  humanised.  Clouds 
loom  ominous  along  the  horizon,  and  only  the  sunlight 
of  brotherhood  can  give  them  silver  linings.  There 
is  one  cloud  that  does  not  need  to  be  looked  for;  it  is 
larger  than  the  shadow  of  a  man's  hand,  and  that  is 
the  way  it  is  shaped;  it  is  the  problem  of  labour. 
Labour  has  awakened  to  a  new  consciousness  of  its 
power  in  consequence  of  this  War  in  a  manner  to 
challenge  our  highest  constructive  thought  and  our 
widest  sympathies.  "Hands,"  you  may  depend  upon 
it,  will  never  be  mere  hands  again;  there  are  brains 
and  hearts  behind  them,  with  a  sense  of  rights  and  of 
wrongs,  with  a  newly  aroused  dignity,  with  vision, 
and  with  a  rightful  demand  for  brotherhood.  Con- 
descension on  the  part  of  capital  must  give  way  to 
comradeship,  patronage  must  be  supplanted  by  partner- 
ship, class  and  mass  must  vanish  in  the  meeting  of 
man  with  man. 

America  to-morrow  must  be  humanised.  Science 
must  be  humanised.  "The  scholar's  taper  in  his  room 
on  high  shall  be  a  star  to  pierce  the  utmost  dark,  and 
guide  poor  men."  Religion  must  be  humanised. 


222  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Squarely  opposed  to  the  Antichrist  dogma  of  Prus- 
sian ideals  of  the  State,  quoted  on  page  211,  is  the 
doctrine  of  Christ,  deep  and  far-reaching :  "The  Sab- 
bath was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath." 
So  the  Church  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
Church,  and  to  this  truth  the  Church  must  awaken. 

American  politics  must  be  humanised,  with  politics 
all  over  the  world.  True  religion  must  be  applied  to 
politics.  As  Arthur  Henderson  says,  "In  a  wider 
sense  than  has  hitherto  been  understood,  the  politics 
of  the  future  will  be  human  politics  and  the  dominat- 
ing party  will  be  the  party  of  the  common  people,  and 
of  democracy.  This  is  certain.  The  people  will  have 
it  so,  for  the  people  are  weary  of  wars.  They  have 
borne  too  long  the  inequalities  and  injustices  inherent 
in  an  economic  system  based  on  competition  instead 
of  co-operation.  .  .  .  We  want  to  replace  the  material 
force  of  arms  by  the  moral  force  of  right  in  the 
governance  of  the  world." 

"Is  it  a  dream? 

Nay,  but  the  lack  of  it  a  dream, 

And  failing  it  life's  lore  and  wealth  a  dream, 

And  all  the  world  a  dream."  1 


Almighty  God,  Who  rulest  over  all  things  in  Heaven 
and  on  earth,  and  before  Whom  all  the  might  of  man 
is  less  than  vanity:  Mercifully  regard  the  scenes  of 
desolation  and  anguish  that  have  come  upon  the  world. 
Bring  Thou  an  end  to  tiie  reign  of  violence.  Make 

xWalt  Whitman. 


AMERICA  TO-MORROW  223 

wars  to  cease  unto  the  end  of  the  earth. '  Break  Thou 
the  bow;  burn  Thou  the  cliariot  in  the  fire!  Scatter 
the  people  that  delight  in  war,  and  let  all  kings  and 
rulers  know  that  Thou  art  God,  even  Thou  only. 

Give  success  to  our  arms  on  land  and  sea.  Be  with 
our  soldiers  and  sailors  at  all  times,  in  camp,  and  at 
sea,  and  as  they  face  the  enemy.  Not  only  protect 
and  defend  them  from  all  peril  of  body  and  soul,  but 
make  their  arms  effective  to  the  maintenance  of  right, 
and  the  deliverance  of  the  world  from  wrong  and 
oppression.  Arise,  O  Lord,  as  in  the  days  of  old. 
Be  Thou  a  wall  of  fire  about  our  hosts.  Let  God 
arise,  let  His  enemies  be  scattered;  as  smoke  is  driven 
away,  so  drive  them  away;  and  grant  us  and  all  na- 
tions speedy,  just  and  lasting  peace.1 

*This  prayer  was  said  and  afterwards  written  out  at  request 
by  Dean  Henry  R  Jacobs,  LL.D.,  of  the  Lutheran  Theological 
Seminary  at  Mount  Airy,  Philadelphia. 


THE  AUTHOR  S   RESIGNATION,   ETC. 

From  the  New  York  Times  of  June  25,  ipi8: 

DR.  SCHERER  QUITS  DEFENSE  COUNCIL  BECAUSE  or  HEARST — 
CHARGES  THAT  SECRETARY  BAKER  WARNED  SPEAKERS  AGAINST 
ATTACKING  CERTAIN  NEWSPAPERS — SAYS  MEMBERS  ARE 
GAGGED — DECLARES  HEARST  SEEKS  TO  HIDE  BEHIND  SKIRTS  OF 
ADMINISTRATION  WHEN  ASSAILED— OTHER  SPEAKERS  STOPPED 
— DR.  SCHERER  ASSERTS  THAT  HE  HAS  RESIGNED  TO  RETAIN 
His  RIGHTS  TO  FREE  SPEECH 


Dr.  James  A.  B.  Scherer,  President  of  Throop 
College  of  Technology,  at  Pasadena,  Cal.,  and  Chief  Field 
Agent  of  the  Council  of  National  Defense,  State  Coun- 
cils Section,  announced  yesterday  that  he  had  resigned 
the  latter  post  and  made  public  his  reasons  in  the  fol- 
lowing open  letter  to  Secretary  of  War  Newton  D.  Baker, 
who  is  Chairman  of  the  Council  of  National  Defense : 

HON.  NEWTON  D.  BAKER,  CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  COUNCIL 
OF  NATIONAL  DEFENSE. 

Sir : — I  have  this  day  handed  Director  W.  S.  Gifford 
my  resignation  as  a  member  of  the  Council  of  National 
Defense,  State  Councils  Section,  and  I  herewith  repeat 
it  to  you.  Ordinarily,  this  resignation  would  have  no 
public  importance  whatever;  but  the  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances that  caused  it  seem  important  enough  to  call 
for  the  fullest  publicity.  I  am  resigning  because  of  your 

225 


226 

policy  in  warning  representatives  of  the  Council,  includ- 
ing myself,  against  freedom  of  speech  in  denouncing 
certain  newspapers  as  inimical  to  the  national  defense. 

I  began  this  denunciation  before  joining  the  Council. 
In  "The  Japanese  Crisis,"  published  in  April,  1916,  (a 
study  of  the  California- Japanese  question,)  I  wrote  of 
the  mischief  wrought  by  Hearst's  two  California  "Exam- 
iners"— some  Westerners  pronounce  them  "Eczemanas !" 
— in  endangering  American  relations  with  Japan.1  So  far 
as  I  now  recollect,  my  first  public  condemnation  of  Hearst 
policies  after  becoming  field  agent  (at  a  dollar  a  year) 
of  the  State  Councils  Section  of  the  National  Council 
a  year  ago,  occurred  last  January,  when  I  happened  to 
be  at  home,  in  Pasadena.  On  receiving  an  invitation  to 
become  a  patron  of  The  Los  Angeles  Examiner's  scheme 
for  rebuilding  French  cities  destroyed  by  the  Kaiser  I 
published  in  The  Los  Angeles  Times  a  letter  contain- 
ing the  words :  "I  cannot  escape  the  impression  that  the 
scheme  originated  with  a  notorious  newspaper  exponent 
of  self-exploitation  with  an  exceedingly  unsavoury  past. 
I  am  unwilling  to  lend  my  name  as  a  patch  on  the  gar- 
ment of  quasi-patriotic  rehabilitation  with  which  the 
Hearst  papers  are  seeking  to  cover  their  record  of  shame 
while  still  pursuing  a  subtle  and  insidious  propaganda 
for  impeding  our  winning  of  the  War." 

This,  however,  brought  you  no  protest  that  I  know  of. 
'A  few  days  later,  speaking  for  the  National  Council 
at  the  Illinois  War  Conference  in  Chicago,  I  used  and 

1  "California  is  little  given  to  'war  scares,'  being  inclined  to 
laugh  at  the  fulminations  of  perfervid  Merrimac  heroes  and  to 
frown  on  the  misrepresentations  of  Hearst  newspapers  as  mali- 
cious and  mischievous." — p.  41.  "Our  Japanese  problem  will 
vanish  into  thin  air  if  we  substitute  in  dealing  with  it  the  spirit 
of  Townsend  Harris  for  the  spirit  of  Hearst;  the  spirit  of  the 
gentleman  and  statesman  for  that  of  the  journalist  one  of  whose 
writers  was  actually  audacious  enough  to  boast  in  a  published 
book  that  his  paymaster  brought  on  the  American  war  with 
Spain  (J.  Creelman,  "On  the  Great  Highway":  Boston,  1901, 
ch.  ix.,  Familiar  Glimpses  of  Yellow  Journalism.  For  examples 
of  grotesquely  mendacious  attempts  to  foment  strife  with  Japan, 
see  files  of  the  Los  Angeles  Examiner,  October,  1915)." — pp. 
63,  64,  "The  Japanese  Crisis,"  Scherer. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.  227 

indorsed  the  following  words  of  one  of  my  colleagues,  in 
warning  the  people  against  the  grave  menace  of  an  incon- 
clusive peace: 

"Some  time  Germany  is  going  to  make  a  plausible  peace 
proposal.  This  will,  of  course,  be  a  camouflaged  war 
move.  She  may  offer  to  yield  Belgium  and  even  to  pay 
some  indemnity;  indeed,  she  will  yield  anything  except 
the  Pan-Germanic  empire  which  she  now  holds,  extend- 
ing from  the  North  Sea  to  Bagdad.  Her  policy  will  be 
elastic  in  the  West  and  adamant  in  the  East.  When  this 
hour  comes  every  pacifist,  every  England-hater,  every 
secret  or  open  pro-German,  every  half-baked  Socialist, 
every  weak-kneed  sister  in  trousers  or  petticoats  will 
clamor  for  the  acceptance  of  the  German  proposal;  or, 
at  least,  for  a  council  of  the  nations  at  which  Germany 
can  get  the  powers  about  the  table  and  juggle  the  cards. 
At  the  same  time  the  twelve  or  fourteen  great  dailies 
owned  and  controlled  by  William  Randolph  Hearst  will 
let  out  a  strident  blast  for  stopping  bloodshed — in  other 
words,  a  peace  'made  in  Germany.'  "  1 

This  warning  I  have  repeated  in  various  States  when 
speaking  at  their  recent  War  Conferences.  I  have  also 
publicly  condemned  the  Hearst  papers  (with  others)  for 
seeking  to  make  it  appear  that  this  War  is  not  so  much 
our  war  as  it  is  that  of  England  and  France. 

That  my  prophecy  concerning  the  probable  Htearst 
policies  regarding  a  German  peace  is  not  unfounded  ap- 
pears, for  example,  from  The  New  York  American' V 
statement  of  Sept.  15,  1917,  as  follows:  "The  best  peace 
for  all  concerned  is  a  peace  without  victory,  a  peace  with- 
out conquest,  a  peace  without  indemnities."  And  Mr. 
Brisbane,  who  ought  to  know,  wrote  in  The  Washing- 
ton Times,  Aug.  8,  1917 :  "The  most  powerful  and  effec- 
tive peace  worker  in  this  country  is  William  Randolph 
Hearst.  The  world  wants  peace.  It  is  more  important 
than  victory."  Little  wonder,  Mr.  Secretary,  that  the 
Cologne  Volkszeitung  commends  the  Hearst  papers 
as  "auxiliaries  for  us  (the  Germans)  of  valued  influ- 

1  For  a  brief  economic  argument  against  an  inconclusive  peace, 
see  Appendix  B. 


228  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

ence,"  as  quoted  in  The  New  York  Tribune  of  yesterday. 
^  The  other  day  (June  19)  Mr.  F.  W.  Kellogg  of  The 
San  Francisco  Call  came  to  my  office  in  Washington, 
saying  that  Mr.  Jackson  of  The  Oregon  Journal — whom 
he  characterized  as  a  warm  friend  of  the  Administra- 
tion— had  complained  of  my  reference  to  the  Hearst 
papers  in  a  speech  made  at  Portland  in  May;  that  he, 
Kellogg,  had  shown  a  copy  of  Jackson's  letter  to  Hearst ; 
and  that  Hearst  had  requested  him  to  ask  me  why  I 
dislike  him.  I  said  that  the  reason  in  a  nutshell  is  that 
I  regard  Mr.  Hearst's  newspaper  policies  as  having  been 
treasonable  in  so  far  as  he  has  dared  to  make  them  so, 
and  his  influence  as  the  most  pernicious  in  American  life. 
Kellogg  conceded  that  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  had  got 
him  to  go  to  Hearst  a  year  ago  to  persuade  him  to  alter 
some  of  his  policies,  but  claimed  that  since  then  he  has 
been  "good."  In  contravention  of  this  I  cited  certain 
•editorials  that  I  happened  to  have  just  at  hand.  Kellogg 
Advanced  the  powerful  argument,  in  behalf  of  Hearst's 
present  goodness,  that  President  Wilson  has  himself  re- 
cently intervened  for  the  restoration  of  Hearst's  cable 
privileges,  removed  by  the  English ;  but  I  find  it  difficult 
to  believe  that  the  President  has  used  the  almost  irre- 
sistible powers  of  his  high  office  to  induce  the  British 
Government  to  show  favor  to  a  news  service  that  they 
have  adjudged  inimical  to  our  great  cause,  as  have  also 
the  Canadians,  to  say  nothing  of  the  French,  whose  offi- 
cial announcement  said  of  the  Hearst  organization,  "the 
connivance  of  which  with  the  enemy  is  certain"  (quoted 
by  New  York  Tribune,  June  23,  1918).  Kellogg's  whole 
contention  seemed  to  be  that,  since  the  Hearst  papers 
support  the  Administration,  they  are  therefore  wholly 
loyal  to  our  cause;  he  even  said  that  Roosevelt  should 
be  condemned  rather  than  Hearst,  seeing  that  the  latter 
supports  the  Administration  (at  present),  while  the  for- 
mer frequently  criticises  it.  He  also  claimed — and  "con- 
spiracy" is  evidently  a  catchword  with  the  Hearst  inter- 
ests nowadays — that  there  is  a  "vast  conspiracy"  through- 
out the  country  to  injure  the  Hearst  papers  out  of  envy 
of  their  business  success.  I  finally  told  him  that  the 


THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.   229 

only  way  to  shut  me  up  as  a  member  of  the  Council  would 
be  to  have  me  put  out. 

The  next  day  I  was  officially  informed  that  Mr.  Kel- 
logg had  called  at  the  War  Office,  and  that  when  the 
Administration  has  decided  on  a  policy  everybody  con- 
nected therewith  must  abide  by  it.  What  this  policy  is 
I  already  knew.  For  I  am  not  the  only  offender.  An- 
other representative  of  the  Council  at  these  recent  War 
Conferences  has  been  complained  of  in  a  telegram  from 
a  Hearst  agent,  for  speaking  (far  less  frequently  and 
more  mildly  than  I  have  done),  in  warning  the  people 
against  the  Hearst  influence,  and  I  had  seen  your  memo- 
randum, Mr.  Secretary,  attached  to  this  telegram,  in- 
structing speakers  that  hereafter  they  must  not  indulge 
in  discriminatory  remarks  as  to  the  relative  values  of 
newspapers.  This  was  officially  sent  to  me,  with  the 
request  to  "note  and  return."  The  language  is  diplo- 
matic, but  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  meaning.  Mn 
Hearst,  who,  for  the  sake  of  scandal-mongering  pennies, 
habitually  assails  individuals  in  his  great  group  of  "Ex- 
aminers* and  other  peep-Tom  newspapers — Mr.  Hearst 
now  seeks  to  creep  under  the  skirts  of  the  Administra- 
tion when  an  individual  assails  his  newspapers  for  dis- 
loyalty, not  to  the  "Administration,"  indeed,  but  to  the 
Government  itself  as  involved  in  the  greatest  War  in  our 
history;  and,  apparently,  the  skirt  is  uplifted  to  receive 
him.  I  resign,  and  so  retain  my  freedom  of  speech 
and  my  right  to  keep  the  oath  I  took  on  entering  the 
Council — to  give  absolute  allegiance  to  the  Government, 
and  to  protect  and  defend  it  against  all  of  its  enemies, 
domestic  and  foreign.1  Deeming  Mr.  Hearst,  as  I  do, 

1  The  exact  words  are :  "I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  sup- 
port and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  against 
all  enemies,  foreign  and  domestic"  (see  p.  58).  I  did  not  have 
a  copy  of  the  oath  by  me  when  writing  the  foregoing  letter. 
The  Constitution  is  of  course  the  quintessential  expression  of  the 
Government.  Incidentally,  it  guarantees  the  right  of  freedom 
of  loyal  speech,  and  defines  treason  as  giving  aid  and  comfort 
to  the  enemy.  It  would  be  unfortunate  for  us  to  permit  the 
words  "Government"  and  "Administration"  to  become  synony- 
mous. 


230  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  Bolo  Pacha  of  American  journalism — our  most  in- 
sidious and  dangerous  internal  foe,1  just  as  the  Kaiser  is 
our  most  dangerous  foreign  enemy — I  must,  apparently, 
in  order  to  keep  my  oath,  resign  from  the  Council!  I 
trust  you  will  consider  carefully  this  point  of  view,  Mr. 
Secretary,  before  suggesting  to  local  councils  of  defense 
throughout  the  country  that  they  must  not  discriminate 

1 1  agree  with  the  following  analysis  of  Mr.  Hearst's  probable 
motives,  but  not  with  the  conclusion :  "Not  being  hampered  by 
deep  convictions  or  by  high  journalistic  and  ethical  standards 
he  exploits  whatever  policies  promise  the  best  results  in  profits 
and  power.  Often  supporting  good  causes,  he  most  persistently 
capitalises  for  his  papers  the  manifold  forces  of  discontent,  hatred 
and  prejudice.  His  essential  policy  is  to  cultivate  the  support 
of  classes  and  groups  whose  passions  can  be  incited  and  turned 
to  account. 

"It  is  a  fair  presumption,  we  think,  that  when  the  war  began 
Mr.  Hearst  surveyed  the  field  in  a  perfectly  cold-blooded  way, 
and  shaped  his  course  upon  this  principle.  He  found  all  the 
New  York  newspapers,  except  his  own,  ranged  against  Ger- 
many, and  saw  an  opportunity  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the 
large  German  population  in  the  metropolitan  district  by  giving 
them  their  sole  English  language  paper.  He  had  always  played 
for  the  anti-English  Irish  element,  and  the  pro-German  Irish 
group  would  be  a  valuable  asset.  He  had  a  German-printed 
newspaper  to  promote.  A  multitude  of  Russian  Jews,  of  the 
extreme  radical  type  which  produced  Bolshevism,  provided  an- 
other promising  field.  Distrust  of  Japan  in  California  could  be 
exploited. 

"Thus  there  were  many  reasons  apart  from  pro-German  sen- 
timent to  inspire  the  Hearst  decision  as  a  matter  of  business. 
And  the  gains  would  seem  to  a  calculating  mind  to  be  sure. 
If  Germany  won  against  the  Allies,  as  Hearst  confidently  be- 
lieved she  would,  he  would  be  a  figure  of  great  influence  and 
power  in  this  country;  if  she  lost,  he  would  be  in  a  position  to 
advocate  an  alliance  between  Germany  and  the  United  States 
to  resist  the  'aggression'  of  Britain,  the  victor.  .  .  . 

"Many  Americans  who  have  been  incensed  and  shocked  by  the 
flagrant  course  of  these  journals  have  been  mystified  by  the 
failure  of  the  government  to  check  the  systematic  rendering  of 
aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy.  .  .  .  We  are  satisfied  that  Mr. 
Hearst  is  not  at  heart  a  traitor  to  the  nation;  that  his  purpose 
has  not  been  to  sell  his  country,  but  to  sell  newspapers." 

It  is  a  strange  conclusion.  The  Constitution  defines  treason 
as  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy,  and  "selling  newspapers" 
is  in  this  case  the  equivalent  of  a  good  deal  more  money  than  the 
famous  "thirty  pieces  of  silver." 


JTHE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.  231 

regarding  newspapers  of  which  they  are  reported  to  be 
making  bonfires. 

JAMES  A.  B.  SCHERER. 
June  24,  1918. 

Dr.  Scherer  is  still  a  member  of  the  Industrial  Service 
Department  of  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation,  United 
States  Shipping  Board. 


From  the  New  York  Tribune  of  June  26,  1918: 

BAKER  ADMITS  ORDER  GAGGING  HEARST  CRITICS — SECRETARY  DE- 
CLARES THAT  RESTRICTION  APPLIED  TO  ALL  PAPERS 

(Special  Despatch  to  The  Tribune) 

WASHINGTON,  June  25.— Secretary  Baker  to-day 
accepted  the  charge  brought  against  him  by  Dr.  James 
A.  B.  Scherer,  who  resigned  from  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense  because,  he  said,  the  Secretary  of  War 
had  forbidden  members  of  that  body  to  criticise  the 
loyalty  of  the  Hearst  newspapers.  Mr.  Baker  admitted 
that  after  Hearst  agents  had  complained  to  him  of  Dr. 
Scherer's  attacks,  he  had  issued  a  general  order  instruct- 
ing Council  members  to  refrain  from  attacking  any  news- 
papers. 

The  Secretary  of  War  also  said  that  the  Hearst  com- 
plaint had  been  to  the  effect  that  Dr.  Scherer  had  spent 
"a  lot  of  time  criticising  in  harsh  terms  the  Hearst  news- 
papers." 

Dr.  Scherer's  letter  of  resignation,  in  which  he  charges 
that  the  Hearst  influence  has  penetrated  the  Council  of 
National  Defense,  had  not  been  received  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  late  to-day,  Mr.  Baker  said.  He  dictated 
the  following  answer  in  explanation  of  his  decision  that 
criticism  of  any  newspaper  must  not  be  made  by  mem- 
bers of  official  organisations: 

"Some  one — I  believe  a  representative  of  one  of  the 
Hearst  papers — had  told  me  that  a  representative  of 


232  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  Council  of  National  Defense  was  making  addresses 
and  spending  a  lot  of  his  time  criticising  in  harsh  terms 
the  Hfearst  papers.  I  told  Mr.  Gifford  that  I  thought 
nobody  who  is  officially  representing  the  government 
ought  to  be  criticising  any  newspaper — I  don't  care 
whether  it  is  Hearst's  paper  or  anybody's  else — and  that 
I  thought,  while  I  hadn't  the  slightest  desire  to  prevent 
any  man  expressing  his  individual  opinion  upon  any 
newspaper,  I  did  not  think  that  any  man  as  a  representa- 
tive of  the  government  ought  to  criticise  any  newspaper." 

Walter  S.  Gifford,  director  of  the  Council  of  National 
Defense,  declared  that  Secretary  Baker's  order  in  the 
Scherer  case  was  a  general  expression  of  policy  of  the 
Council,  and  as  such  it  was  sent  to  all  members  of  the 
Council  and  not  to  Dr.  Scherer  alone.  He  said  that  Dr. 
Scherer's  resignation  had  not  yet  been  received  by  him, 
and  until  it  is  received  he  would  withhold  comment. 

Director  Gifford,  however,  said  that  Dr.  Scherer  had 
been  one  of  the  Council's  most  energetic  workers  during 
the  last  year,  and  had  "performed  splendid  and  efficient 
work  as  chief  field  agent." 

The  decision  in  the  Scherer  case,  Mr.  Gifford  said, 
only  applied  to  members  of  the  Council  of  National  De- 
fense, and  would  not  extend  to  the  members  of  State 
Councils.  He  said  that  the  National  Council,  however, 
had  to  make  general  policies  as  a  guide  to  members  of 
the  organisation,  and  that  the  order  directed  by  Secretary 
Baker  was  the  enunciation  that  must  be  rigidly  ad- 
hered to. 

Mr.  Gifford  indicated  that  the  resignation  of  Dr. 
Scherer  would  be  accepted  when  it  was  received.  He 
was  not  prepared  to-night  to  say  who  in  the  Council 
of  National  Defense  would  be  selected  to  carry  on  the 
work  outlined  by  Dr.  Scherer. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.  238 

From  the  New  York  Tribune  of  July  20,  1918: 

THIS  HEARST  AND  THAT  ONE 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  TRIBUNE. 

Sir: — A  friend  has  just  shown  me  The  Los  Angeles 
Examiner  of  July  5,  containing  an  editorial  article  en- 
titled "Dr.  Scherer  and  Secretary  of  War  Baker — What 
a  Contrast!"  Undoubtedly,  there  is  a  contrast  between 
Secretary  Baker  and  myself,  but  the  public  is  not  in- 
terested in  it.  The  public  is  greatly  interested,  however, 
in  the  contrast  between  the  Hearst  of  May,  1918,  and 
the  Hearst  of  May,  1917. 

Since  the  i6th  of  May,  1918,  when  the  President  signed 
the  sedition  act,  penalizing  with  heavy  fines  or  imprison- 
ment, or  both,  those  who  seek  "to  promote  the  success 
of  our  enemies,"  "to  obstruct  the  sale  by  the  United 
States  of  bonds,"  or  "by  word  or  act  support  or  favor 
the  cause  of  any  country  with  which  the  United  States 
is  at  war,  or  by  word  or  act  oppose  the  cause  of  the 
Uhited  States  therein" — since  May  16,  1918,  Mr.  Hearst 
has  seemed  to  be  good,  and  will  perhaps  seem  so  for 
a  season,  since  he  now  advertises  his  "loyalty"  with  his 
own  full-page  affidavits. 

But  let  us  contrast  the  Jekyll  Hearst  of  May,  1918, 
with  the  Hyde  Hearst  of  May,  1917. 

The  Hamburger  Nachrichten  joyfully  reprinted  from 
Hearst's  New  York  American  of  May  3,  1917,  these 
editorial  excerpts: 

"Well,  the  facts  are  these:  .  .  .  unless  America  can 
perform  the  twin  miracles  of  rescuing  England  from 
the  submarine  and  of  putting  enough  troops  in  France 
to  beat  off  the  offensive  which  the  Germans  are  now 
beginning  to  develop,  .  .  . 

"We  tell  you  plainly  that  in  a  military,  naval  and 
economic  way  the  Germans  have  the  Allies  whipped, 
and  that  without  our  intervention  there  was  not  a  doubt 
that  Germany  would  have  victoriously  dictated  peace  be- 
fore this  year  was  gone  .  .  . 


234.  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"And  we  have  been  plunged  into  war,  without  prepa- 
ration, with  the  most  powerful  single  nation  in  the  world, 
equipped  to  the  last  shoelace  with  every  possible  neces- 
sity of  warfare,  filling  the  seas  with  her  submarine  navy, 
covering  half  a  continent  with  her  veteran  armies,  and 
everywhere  winning  her  way  with  blood  and  iron  against 
her  foes!" 

Yet  the  amiable  Secretary  of  War  says  that  nobody 
representing  the  government  ought  to  be  criticising  any 
newspaper. 

The  Cologne  Volkszeitung  reprinted  from  Hearst's 
New  York  American  of  May  17  and  21,  1917,  these 
editorial  comments: 

"Our  part  in  this  war,  for  months  to  come,  is  to 
pay  the  bill — to  finance  and  feed  hungry  and  bankrupt 
England,  hungry  and  bankrupt  France,  hungry  and  bank- 
rupt Italy.  .  .  . 

"If  the  result  of  war  is  to  be  that  we  will  be  hope- 
lessly outclassed  by  England  as  a  naval  power  and  hope- 
lessly beaten  by  England  at  the  start  in  competition  for 
the  world's  trade,  then  it  would  seem  to  be  prudent  to 
keep  enough  of  our  own  money  to  build  our  indus- 
tries. .  .  . 

"Our  money,  like  our  armies  and  our  fleets,  should 
be  concentrated  at  its  home  bases  and  not  dispersed 
abroad. 

"It  is  plain  enough  that  the  bond  issue  is  not  being 
eagerly  taken,  to  say  the  least.  The  banks  have  gone 
in  to  the  limit  with  commendable  alacrity,  but  the  people 
are  not  buying  the  bonds.  The  government  will  doubt- 
less eventually  dispose  of  the  $2,000,000,000  issue,  but 
who  can  say  as  much  of  the  next  issue?" 

The  Berlin  Lokalanzeiger  reprinted  from  Hearst's  New 
York  American  of  May  16,  1917,  these  gems  of  editorial 
"loyalty": 

"The  reports  of  our  own  officers  say  that  the  Allies 
will  lose  the  war  unless  we  send  enough  war  materials, 
men  and  ships  to  help  them  win.  .  .  . 


THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.  235 

"As  long  as  the  U-boat  danger  is  not  put  out  of  the 
way,  any  question  of  shipping  men  across  and  also  ma- 
terial is  in  the  air.  Things  being  such,  would  it  not 
be  better  to  end  the  war  honorably?  Shall  we  send 
troops  to  destroy  Germany  which,  perhaps,  may  be  nec- 
essary for  the  defence  of  our  own  country?" 

While  all  newspapers  look  alike  to  our  Secretary  of 
War,  the  Germans  exercise  discrimination. 

The  New  York  Tribune's  translation  of  a  tender  tribute 
to  Hearst  in  the  Cologne  Volkszeitung  follows : 

"In  the  daily  press  the  numerous  Hearst  papers  of 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  Chicago,  San  Fran- 
cisco and  other  cities  were  auxiliaries  for  us  of  valued 
influence.  .  .  .  How  far  Hearst's  International  News 
Service  got  upon  the  nerves  of  the  London  atrocity  manu- 
facturers is  shown  by  the  cable  embargo  which  Lon- 
don finally  placed  upon  the  Hearst  service,  thereby  cut- 
ting his  European  life-nerve. 

"More  valuable,  however,  than  the  news  were  the 
editorials  of  the  Hearst  newspapers.  They  were  un- 
excelled models  of  popular  style  and  arresting  composi- 
tion. .  .  . 

"Hearst  last  year,  took  the  sting  out  of  one  of  the 
worst  pests  of  the  American  press  when  he  had  his 
editor  in  chief  of  The  Evening  Journal — Arthur  Bris- 
bane, with  his  salary  of  $75,000,  the  highest  paid  news- 
paper man  of  America  and  probably  of  the  world — 
to  buy  The  Washington  Times  and  conduct  it  in  a  line 
with  his  other  papers." 

That  The  Times  has  been  conducted  "in  a  line  with 
his  other  papers"  is  sufficiently  clear  from  Hearst's 
$75,ooo-man's  issue  of  July  16,  1917,  issued  within  two 
blocks  of  the  White  House,  whence  he  is  intimately  ad- 
dressed by  Mr.  Tumulty  as  "My  dear  Brisbane." 

"Anarchy  rules  in  Russia,"  writes  The  Washington 
Times;  "somebody  must  do  something.  The  natural 


236  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

somebody  is  Germany,  right  next  door  to  Russia.  .  .  . 
the  civilisation  of  Western  Europe  may  be  very  grate- 
ful to  Germany  if  the  war  finds  Germany  with  enough 
strength  left  to  undertake  the  maintaining  of  order  in 
Russia— developing  the  resources  there  and  making  a 
few  billions  of  rubles  in  the  process." 

How  could  Mr.  Burleson  write  of  the  Hearst  levia- 
than's development  in  Chicago  as  "able  and  unselfish 
efforts"  in  behalf  of  "justice  and  freedom  and  true 
democratic  government"?  And  how  is  it  that  a  Hearst 
agent  could  dare  come  into  my  office  in  the  Council  of 
National  Defense  building  and  boast  that  the  President 
himself  had  intervened  to  have  Hearst's  cable  privi- 
leges restored  ? — which  statement  I  do  not  yet  permit  my- 
self to  believe. 

The  Examiner  sharpens  the  shaft  aimed  at  me  with 
the  point  that  I  prefer  abandoning  war  work  rather  than 
freedom  of  speech.  This  would  be  interesting  if  true. 
Although  I  resigned  from  the  Council,  I  am  still  giving 
all  of  my  time  to  war  work,  in  other  branches  of  service, 
and  shall  do  so  for  some  time  to  come.  In  fact,  I  am 
still  giving  assistance  to  the  Council  of  National  Defense, 
albeit  unofficially,  so  as  to  keep  to  my  own  conscience  the 
oath  I  swore  when  entering  the  Council  to  support  and 
defend  the  Government  "against  all  enemies,  foreign  and 
domestic." 

The  Brooklyn  Eagle,  on  the  morning  when  my  open 
letter  appeared  (June  25),  contained  an  editorial  as 
follows : 

"A  Charge  That  Should  Be  Answered:  Dr.  Scherer 
regards  Mr.  Hearst  and  his  newspapers  as  dangerous  to 
a  country  engaged  in  the  prosecution  of  a  great  war," 
said  The  Eagle.  "He  expresses  that  opinion  without 
qualification  or  reserve.  He  sustains  his  position  with 
reference  to  Hearst  policies  as  defined  in  the  columns 
controlled  by  Mr.  Hearst.  He  prefers  to  get  out  of 
the  Council  of  National  Defence  to  remaining  an  officer 
of  it  with  a  tongue  tied  by  an  order  from  the  Secretary 


THE  AUTHOR'S  RESIGNATION,  ETC.  237 

of  War.  .  .  .  The  imputation  that  Mr.  Baker  has  as- 
sumed the  role  of  a  Hearst  defender  is  serious.  Mr. 
Baker  is  an  able  controversialist,  and  his  reply  to  Dr. 
Scherer  will  be  awaited  with  interest."  * 

The  following  day  Mr.  Baker  replied,  in  a  statement 
triumphantly  quoted  by  The  Los  Angeles  Examiner,  as 
follows : 

"Some  one,  I  believe  a  representative  of  one  of  the 
Hearst  papers,  had  told  me  that  a  representative  of  the 
Council  of  National  Defence  was  making  addresses  and 
spending  a  lot  of  his  time  criticising  in  harsh  terms  the 
Hearst  newspapers.  I  told  Mr.  Gifford  that  I  thought 
nobody  who  was  officially  representing  the  government 
ought  to  be  criticising  any  newspaper,  I  don't  care 
whether  it  is  Hearst's  paper  or  anybody  else's,  and  that 
while  I  hadn't  the  slightest  desire  to  prevent  any  man 
expressing  his  individual  opinion  upon  any  newspaper, 
I  didn't  think  that  any  man  as  a  representative  of  the 
government  ought  to  be  criticising  any  newspaper.". 

xThe  Brooklyn  Eagle  said  further  in  this  same  editorial  arti- 
cle: "Newspapers  rightly  object  to  any  interference  with  their 
own  freedom  of  statement  on  public  questions.  They  do  not, 
and  should  not,  deny  the  right  of  individuals  to  an  equal  free- 
dom of  statement  when  they  themselves  are  affected  by  it.  The 
issue  raised  by  Dr.  Scherer  is  really  of  more  consequence  than 
Hearst  or  his  newspapers.  It  goes  far  beyond  the  question  of 
Mr.  Hearst's  loyalty  now,  far  beyond  the  question  of  what  his 
purpose  has  been  in  attacking  England,  assailing  Japan,  or 
arguing  against  the  despatch  of  American  armies  to  fight  the 
battles  of  civilization  in  Europe.  Summed  up,  the  issue  is 
whether  any  representative  of  the  Federal  Government  is  justi- 
fied in  gagging  responsible  subordinates  who  wish  to  speak  their 
mind  about  newspapers  which  have  freely  spoken  their  mind 
without  rebuke  from  the  Government  with  whose  policies  they 
have  disagreed.  Dr.  Scherer  has  charged  gagging  under  cir- 
cumstances that  call  for  an  explanation  by  Secretary  Baker.  He 
has  placed  the  War  Department  in  the  position  of  an  apologist 
for  or  defender  of  a  certain  group  of  newspapers  and  their 
proprietor.  No  group  of  newspapers,  no  individual  newspaper 
and  no  newspaper  proprietor  should  expect  or  ask  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  to  interpose  its  authority  as  a  pro- 
tection against  criticism,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  official  rela- 
tion between  the  Government  and  the  critic." 


238 

Mr.  Burleson  made  an  exception  of  the  Hearst  papers 
in  his  rulings  debarring  other  publications,  infinitely  less 
mischievous,  from  the  mails.  Had  he  not  made  this 
exception,  individuals  would  not  be  compelled  to  match 
freedom  of  speech  against  the  license  of  Mr.  Hearst's 
press.  But  Mr.  Baker  says  that  his  rules  have  no  excep- 
tions; all  newspapers  look  alike  to  him;  and  thus  the 
unexceptionable  rules  of  the  War  Secretary  uphold  the 
exceptions  of  the  Burleson  rulings. 

JAMES  A.  B.  SCHERER. 

New  York,  July  19,  1918. 


APPENDIX  B 

A  BRIEF  ECONOMIC  ARGUMENT  AGAINST  AN  INCONCLU- 
SIVE PEACE 

Used  by  permission 
By  FRANK  BOHN 

THIS  is  only  superficially  a  war  between  two  groups 
of  nations.  It  is  fundamentally  a  war  between  two  social 
systems — between  two  methods  of  industrial  reorgani- 
zation. The  coming  task  of  the  democratic  peoples  is 
to  apply  their  basic  political  and  intellectual  principle  to 
industrialism.  The  task  which  the  autocratic  peoples 
have  set  themselves  is  to  apply  a  benevolent  and  most 
efficient  monarchism  to  the  stupendous  and  intricate 
mechanics  of  modern  life.  The  stake  of  the  game  is 
the  world  of  our  times  and  of  an  indefinite  future. 

Place  before  yourself  a  map  of  Eurasia.  Draw  a  line 
from  the  Baltic  to  the  Adriatic,  west  of  Holland  and 
Germany  and  south  of  Switzerland.  You  will  see  pro- 
jecting in  the  sea  west  of  this  line  five  little  fingers — 
Italy,  Franco-Iberia,  Britain,  and  the  two  Scandinavian 
peninsulas.  East  of  that  line  are  the  mighty  hands  of 
middle  Europe,  the  arms  of  Russia  and  the  Bagdad  line, 
and  the  massive  body  of  Asia  proper.  Let  Kaiserism 
organize  indefinitely  to  the  eastward  and  the  fingers 
of  Western  Europe  will  be  speedily  drawn  into  the  sys- 
tem. Let  Kaiserism  live  in  middle  Europe  and  the  in- 
evitable result  will  be  a  league  with  an  imperialistic  Japan 
for  the  permeation  of  Asia.  Cut  Kaiserism  out  of  Eu- 
rope now  and  Japan  will  be  well  on  the  road  toward 

239 


240  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

democracy  within  five  years.  The  general  tendency  of 
our  world  society  from  London  to  Yokohama,  and 
from  Yokohama  to  New  York,  will  be  dependent  for 
direction  upon  the  result.  For  modern  mechanical  mili- 
tarism and  democracy  cannot  live  permanently  together 
in  the  same  world. 

During  the  coming  twenty  years  the  stupendous  and 
almost  untouched  economic  fields  of  Russia  and  the  Near 
East,  of  Siberia,  India,  and  China  as  well  as  of  Africa 
and  South  America,  are  going  to  be  permeated  by  indus- 
trialism. The  sources  of  raw  material  are  going  to  be 
opened  up  by  the  nations  which  have,  first,  the  machines ; 
second,  the  technical  experts ;  third,  the  banking  capital. 
The  greater  economic  forces  will  draw  these  elements 
from  those  who  have  and  scatter  them  among  those 
who  have  not  just  as  the  sun  draws  water  from  the 
sea  and  pours  it  upon  the  land.  The  question  is,  shall 
this  process  proceed  democratically — in  the  interests  of 
the  peoples  who  live  upon  the  soil  which  will  be  devel- 
oped and  exploited,  or  will  it  take  place  autocratically 
in  the  interest  of  a  selfish  ruling  class? 

Give  Germany  Russia  to  exploit  and  her  monarchical, 
militaristic  efficiency  will  do  the  job  with  infinitely  greater 
speed  and  accuracy  than  the  democratic  nations  can  hope 
to  do.  For  instance,  a  truly  democratic  Government 
in  America  will  help  to  organize  the  Chinese  only  as  the 
Chinese  request  credit,  expert  guidance,  and  economic 
and  educational  assistance.  But  the  actual  organiza- 
tion which  a  liberal  America  or  Britain  would  accomplish 
in  China  in  ten  years  the  German  militaristic  regime 
would  probably  do  in  two  or  three  years.  Let  Kaiserism 
live  in  Germany  and  an  open  door  in  China  will  be  an 
open  door  through  which  the  German  drill  master  and 
military  engineer  will  enter  to  kick  the  beginning  of 
Chinese  democracy  out  of  the  window. 

The  most  important  single  economic  factor  in  Eurasia 
is  to  be  the  railway  line  from  Constantinople  to  Canton, 
China,  through  Central  Asia.  Let  Kaiserism  build  that 
line  and  India  will  be  Germanized  as  soon  as  the  Ger- 
man General  Staff  concludes  that  sufficient  troops  can 


AGAINST  INCONCLUSIVE  PEACE 

be  moved  to  the  Indian  frontier.  In  the  presence  of 
these  factors  the  Berlin-Bagdad  avenue  to  empire  be- 
comes an  almost  negligible  bypath. 

Let  German  monarchical  industrialism  organize  Eu- 
rasia and  the  eighty  millions  of  Germans  in  Germany 
and  Austria  will  become,  en  masse,  a  ruling  class.  This 
has  been  the  place  of  Junkerdom  for  a  full  generation. 
They  will  be  fed  and  protected,  trained  and  led,  as 
never  before.  Their  dream  of  supremacy  will  have  been 
100  per  cent,  realized.  If  they  have  endured  the  slavery 
of  the  last  half  century  and  the  sufferings  of  the  last 
four  years  for  their  dream  of  power,  what  will  they  not 
do  and  permit  to  be  done  with  them  when  the  goods 
are  in  their  hands  and  in  their  pockets?  The  German 
laborer  will  see  his  son  trained  to  be  a  captain  of  in- 
dustry. The  young  German  shopkeeper  will  stay  in  the 
army  as  a  Captain  in  the  foreign  service.  Every  black 
<nan,  every  yellow  man,  every  brown  man  in  the  world 
will  say  to  us  that  we  have  failed  and  of  our  democracy 
that  it  was  a  foolish  dream.  What  was  the  loot  of  im- 
perial power  in  ancient  times  compared  to  the  German 
loot  to  be  hauled  in  from  farm  and  mine  and  factory 
today,  when  one  single  machine  does  the  work  of  thou- 
sands of  old-time  hand  tools?  Today  Germany  is  gralx 
bing  the  water  power  of  the  Swiss  Alps,  and  will,  if  we 
compromise  the  war,  make  it  the  greatest  manufacturing 
centre  of  Europe  within  fifteen  years.  Tomorrow  the 
Urals  and  Himalayas  will  drive  the  wheels  of  her  infi- 
nite machinery.  The  future  of  that  stupendous  system, 
not  the  future  of  a  hundred  years,  but  the  future  of 
twenty  years,  staggers  the  imagination. 

There  are  those  who,  being  ignorant  of  history  and 
ignorant  of  economics,  are  blind  to  the  fundamentals 
of  this  war.  They  would  compromise  liberty  and  de- 
mocracy because  they  conceive  liberty  and  democracy 
as  being  among  the  raw  products  of  nature's  cosmic 
forces.  What  folly!  Liberty  and  democracy  are  the 
ripe  fruitage  of  clear  mind  and  iron  will,  of  lofty  ideal 
and  glorious  purpose.  Without  these  the  economic  fac- 
tors may  prepare  the  soil  all  in  vain.  If  our  life  forces, 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

now  being  weighed  in  the  balance,  are  found  wanting, 
liberty  and  democracy  will  perish  from  the  earth. 

"But  the  German  is  such  a  fool  he  can  never  suc- 
ceed," I  hear  it  said  on  every  hand. 

"No,"  I  answer,  whenever  I  hear  that  remark,  "you 
are  wrong;  you  are  the  fool." — New  York  Times,  Au- 
gust 5,  1918. 


APPENDIX  C 

WHAT  THE  SIERRA  MADRE  CLUB  THINKS  OF  THE  "LOS| 
ANGELES  EXAMINER" 

Sierra  Madre  Club 
Los  Angeles 

STATEMENT 

On  the  6th  day  of  June,  1918,  pursuant  to  a  resold 
tion  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Sierra  Madre  Club, 
delivery  of  the  Hearst  publications  was  ordered  discon- 
tinued, and  the  Club's  subscription  cancelled. 

On  June  I2th,  1918,  Mr.  Fenner  H.  Webb,  a  member 
of  the  Club  and  one  of  the  Editors  of  the  Los  Angeles 
Examiner,  published  through  its  columns  an  open  let- 
ter addressed  to  the  Board  of  Directors,  protesting 
against  its  action,  and  suggesting  that  the  entire  Board 
of  Directors  meet  and  rescind  the  action. 

On  the  2Oth  day  of  June,  1918,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  the  Sierra  Madre  Club,  at  which 
ten  of  the  twelve  members  of  the  Board  were  present 
(two  being  absent  from  the  city),  it  was  resolved  by 
unanimous  vote  to  mail  the  following  letter  in  reply  to 
his  communication  to  the  Board,  and.  that  a  copy  of  the 
letter  be  mailed  to  each  member  of  the  Club: 

June  20,  1918. 
MR.  FENNER  H.  WEBB, 
c/o  Los  Angeles  Examiner, 

Los  ANGELES,  CAL. 
DEAR  SIR: 

For  the  information  of  the  members  of  the  Sierra 
Madre  Club  and  the  guidance  of  its  Board  of  Directors, 

243 


244  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

will  you,  as  one  of  the  Editors  of  the  Los  Angeles 
Examiner,  answer  through  its  columns  the  following 
question  ? 

Does  the  sentiment  expressed  in  the  following  quo- 
tations from  editorials  published  in  the  Los  Angeles  Ex- 
aminer since  Congress  declared  that  a  state  of  war 
existed  between  the  United  States  and  Germany  reflect 
the  present  convictions  of  Mr.  Hearst  and  the  policy 
of  his  publications,  and  do  you  think  that  an  institu- 
tion 100  per  cent  American  should,  after  this  country 
declared  war  on  Germany,  publish  through  its  edito- 
rial columns  such  sentiments? 

For  the  information  of  the  members  of  the  Sierra 
Madre  Club  and  the  guidance  of  its  Board  of  Di- 
rectors, do  you,  as  a  member  of  the  Club  (not  as  Editor 
of  the  Examiner),  subscribe  to  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  the  quotations  given  below,  and  do  you,  as  a  member, 
think  that  the  Sierra  Madre  Club  should,  with  eighty 
of  its  members  in  the  service,  support  with  its  money 
and  patronage  a  publication  holding  and  circulating  such 
views  ? 

Each  and  every  one  of  the  following  quotations  was 
taken  from  editorials  published  in  the  Examiner  AFTER 
this  country  entered  the  war  against  Germany  as  an 
ally  of  Italy,  France,  England  and  Japan: 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  April  p,  1917: 
"When  this  war  is  over  and  the  peoples  at  last  dis- 
"cover  how  they  have  been  deceived  and  deluded  and 
"inflamed  to  furious  passion  and  deadly  hatred  and  awful 
"slaughter  by  this  huge  conspiracy  of  organized  lying 
"and  concealment  of  real  facts,  a  roar  of  universal 
"execration  will  go  up,  and  the  men  who  have  given  their 
"pens  and  talent  to  this  sinister  work,  miscalled  patriotic 
"propaganda,  will  be  fortunate  if  outraged  peoples  do 
"not  hang  them  as  fast  as  they  are  caught." 


Los  Angeles  Examiner,  April  n, 

"We  say  again—  and  we  have  a  right  to  speak,  since 

"we  alone  predicted  and  warned  the  country  of  these 


WHAT  SIERRA  MADRE  CLUB  THINKS     245 

"conditions  and  urged  preparation  for  them — we  say  that 
"every  shipment  of  food  and  military  supplies  from  this 
"time  on  is  a  BLOW  AT  OUR  SAFETY  and  that  if  we 
"do  not  stop  this  fatal  drain  upon  our  resources,  the 
"country  will  be  face  to  face  with  hunger,  and  possibly 
"worse  disaster.  .  .  . 

"Now  our  earnest  suggestion  to  Congress  is  that  it 
"imperatively  refuse  to  permit  the  further  drainage  of 
"our  food  supplies  and  our  military  supplies  and  our 
"money  supplies  to  Europe.  .  .  . 

"We  insist  that  none  of  these  things  at  this  eleventh 
"hour,  when  the  huge  armies  are  already  locked  in  the 
"final  death  grapple,  can  have  any  decisive  effect  one 
"way  or  the  other  upon  Europe's  conflict.  .  .  . 

".  .  .  We  urge  you  (Congress)  not  to  weaken  our 
"country's  preparedness,  not  to  give  away  our  money  by 
"ship  loads  and  to  squander  our  men  and  our  food  re- 
Nerves  upon  Europe.  .  .  ." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  April  13,  ip  17: 
"Particularly  do  we  deplore  this  sentiment  which  has 
"been  fostered  against  the  submarine.      .  . 

"We  are  making  a  terrible  mistake  in  this  sentimental 
"objection  to  submarine  warfare.  .  .  . 

"But  as  things  stand  in  these  circumstances  of  uncer- 
tainty, in  our  utterly  unprepared  condition,  there  is 
"only  one  possible  course  that  is  sensible,  and  that  is 
"to  begin  at  once  and  to  continue  to  work  with  all  our 
"might  and  main  to  supply  all  our  military  needs  and 
"to  keep  every  dollar  and  every  man  and  every  weapon 
"and  all  our  supplies  and  stores  at  home  for  the  de- 
fense of  our  own  land,  our  own  people,  our  own  free- 
"dom,  until  that  defense  has  been  made  absolutely 
"secure." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  April  23,  1917: 
"Citizens,  let  us  build  our  own  navy  and  build  it  strong 

"enough  to  protect  us  not  only  against  Germany,  but 

"against  England  and  Japan.  .  .  . 
"Citizens,  let  us  prepare  for  every  eventuality.    Let  us 


246  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"prepare  for  the  future  as  well  as  the  present,  and  when 
"preparing  for  the  future,  let  us  remember  the  past." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  April  26,  1917: 
"We  say  plainly  to  Washington  that  the  whole  people 
"are  ready  to  back  up  solidly,  with  all  possible  enthu- 
"siasm  and  with  all  their  resources  to  the  last  dollar 
"and  to  the  last  man,  AN  AMERICAN  WAR  FOR  THE 
"RIGHTS  AND  BENEFITS  OF  AMERICA,  but  the 
"majority,  and  the  vast  majority  too,  are  not  disposed, 
"to  put  it  very  mildly,  to  be  enthusiastic  over  fighting  a 
"war  for  England,  to  save  England  from  defeat,  to  re- 
"establish  her  insolent  tyranny  over  the  seas  that  should 
"be  free,  to  put  our  navy  at  her  disposal,  to  strip  our 
"own  people  of  food  for  her,  to  neglect  our  own  defense 
"against  terrible  dangers  that  may  come,  in  order  that 
"England  may  be  safeguarded  with  American  men, 
"American  money,  American  resources  and  everything 
"that  is  ABSOLUTELY  NECESSARY  TO  OUR 
"OWN  DEFENSE  AND  SAFETY." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  June  25,  1917: 
"But  it  is  only  right  that  England  and  France  shall  fight 

"their  great  battles  for  themselves,  so  long  as  they  have 

"men  enough  to  do  it.  ... 

".  .  .  But  until  that  time  (until  all  Englishmen  every- 

"where  have  been  drafted),  America  is  not  called  in  honor 

"nor  in  duty  to  send  her  beardless  boys  across  the  sea 

"to  be  sacrificed  for  England's  cause." 


Los  Angeles  Examiner,  July  2, 
"These  papers  have  said  consistently,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  maintain  that  the  American  soldiers  who  go 
"to  France,  should  go  as  volunteers,  and  not  as  con- 
"scripted  men  sent  by  the  will  of  the  Government." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  Sept.  24,  1917: 

"The  delicate  question  now  is  whether  the  President 

"can  bring  England  around  to  an  acceptance  of  a  rea- 

"sonable  peace  upon  American  terms,  or  whether  that 


WHAT  SIERRA  MADRE  CLUB  THINKS     247 

"Government  will  stubbornly  insist  upon  a  peace  upon 
"England's  terms." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  March  4,  1918: 

"Japanese  entry  into  Siberia  is  not  to  aid  the  Allies, 
"but  to  entrench  Japan.  .  .  . 

"All  the  world  is  threatened  by  the  advancing  empire 
"of  Japan,  but  especially  and  particularly  is  America 
"threatened.  .  .  . 

"We  are  peculiarly  threatened  because  we  are  the 
"nearest  thing  to  Japan  commercially  and  territorially, 
"and  the  farthest  thing  from  Japan  politically,  economi- 
"cally,  industrially  and  socially.  .  .  . 

"Is  it  intelligence  to  allow  our  yellow  opponent  to 
"strengthen  himself  at  the  expense  of  our  white  allies  ? — 
"for  all  the  white  races  are  our  natural  and  inevitable 
"allies  in  the  world  racial  conflict.  .  .  . 

"Is  it  statesmanship  to  permit  the  army  to  be  increased 
"in  men,  in  morale,  in  resources,  in  wealth  and  equip- 
"ment — the  army  which  is  soon  to  be  hurled  against  our 
"sons,  our  standards,  our  civilization,  our  independence, 
"our  existence?  .  .  . 

"May  these  blind  fools  of  white  nations  make  peace 
"among  themselves  and  make  preparations  against  the 
"enemy  for  the  fundamental  conflict  which  is  at  hand, 
"and  may  our  great  President  detect  and  prevent  the 
"disastrous  mistake  which  the  mad  European  nations 
"are  making  in  allowing  Japan  to  make  of  China  and 
"Siberia  and  all  Western  Asia  a  mighty  military  power 
"to  essay  the  domination  of  the  world." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  March  8,  1918: 
"The  only  attitude  of  importance  is  the  attitude  of 
"the  United  States.  Without  the  United  States,  Great 
"Britain  and  her  Allies,  including  her  special  ally  Japan, 
"would  be  seeking  peace,  not  conquest,  would  be  en- 
deavoring to  retain  what  territory  they  have,  not  trying 
"to  secure  what  belongs  to  others.  .  .  . 

"If  Great  Britain  cannot  restrain  her  special  ally  from 
"acts  of  aggression  inimical  to  our  interest,  we  can  re- 


248  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"move  our  ships  and  troops  from  Europe  and  transfer 
"them  to  Asia.  .  .  . 

"If  Japan  does  not  want  to  see  all  the  white  races  of 
"Europe  united  under  the  most  efficient  military  nation 
"of  the  white  races  and  united  against  the  yellow  races, 
"it  will  not  throw  Russia,  and  eventually  the  rest  of 
"Europe,  into  the  hands  of  Germany." 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  March  28,  ipi8: 
"Why  are  we  to  believe  that  there  is  any  sincerity  or 
"anything  but  the  utmost  brutal  Oriental  selfishness  in 
"Japan's  present  attitude  ?  If  Japan  does  go  into  Siberia 
"she  is  going  in  to  take  Siberia,  and  when  she  has  taken 
"Siberia  who  is  going  to  drive  her  from  Siberia?  Not 
"the  allies,  for  they  are  too  much  occupied  with  their 
"war.  Not  the  United  States,  because  we  are  putting 
"all  our  eggs  in  the  allies'  basket.  Not  Russia,  because 
"if  she  has  been  unable  TO  KEEP  JAPAN  OUT  OF 
"SIBERIA  she  certainly  will  not  be  able  to  DRIVE 
"JAPAN  OUT  OF  SIBERIA,  once  Japan  has  occupied 
"that  territory.  There  is  only  one  combination  possible 
"which  might  drive  Japan  out  of  Siberia,  and  that  is  Rus- 
"sia  in  active  and  aggressive  alliance  with  the  Teutonic 
"empires." 

In  April,  1917,  the  only  possible  effective  aid  this  coun- 
try could  render  to  our  allies,  England  and  France,  in 
the  war  against  the  common  enemy,  Germany,  was  in 
the  continued  shipment  of  food,  military  supplies  and 
money,  and  yet  the  Examiner,  in  an  editorial  published 
in  its  issue  of  April  n,  1917,  suggested  to  Congress,  at 
the  very  time  the  allied  armies  were,  to  quote  the  edito- 
rial in  question,  "locked  in  the  final  death  grapple,"  to 
"imperatively  refuse  to  permit  the  further  drainage  of 
"our  food  supplies  and  our  military  supplies  and  our 
"money  supplies  to  Europe."  And  two  days  later,  in 
another  editorial,  advised  that  the  only  sensible  course 
for  this  Government  to  pursue  was  "to  keep  every  dollar 
and  every  man  and  every  weapon  and  all  our  supplies 
and  stores  at  home.  . 


WHAT  SIERRA  MADRE  CLUB  THINKS     249 

Can  the  human  mind  conceive  an  action  more  dastardly, 
more  cowardly,  more  treacherous,  and  more  in  aid  of 
the  enemy,  than  that  suggested  by  the  Examiner  to 
Congress  as  the  only  sensible  course  for  this  Govern- 
ment to  pursue? 

Von  Tirpitz  never  dreamed  of  accomplishing  as  much 
with  his  submarines,  nor  Von  Hindenburg  with  his 
armies,  as  the  Examiner's  suggested  action,  if  adopted, 
would  have  accomplished  for  Germany. 

As  you  said  in  your  open  letter  to  this  Board,  "Neither 
"Mr.  Hearst  nor  his  newspapers  need  any  defense  from 
"me.  His  life  and  his  newspapers  speak  for  themselves." 

No  further  comment  is  necessary. 
Yours  truly, 

(Signed)     M.  J.  CHENARD, 

Secretary. 

Per  order  of  the  Board. 


APPENDIX  D 

A  LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT 

Used  by  permission 

"May  22,  1918. 
"Mv  DEAR  SENATOR  POINDEXTER: 

"The  following  article  from  me  appeared  in  The  Kan- 
sas City  Star  on  May  7,  1918 : 

"  'Sedition,  a  Free  Press  and  Personal  Rule. 

"  'The  legislation  now  being  enacted  by  Congress 
should  deal  drastically  with  sedition.  It  should  also  guar- 
antee the  right  of  the  press  and  people  to  speak  the 
truth  freely  of  all  their  public  servants,  including  the 
President,  and  to  criticise  them  in  the  severest  terms  of 
truth  whenever  they  come  short  in  their  public  duty. 
Finally,  Congress  should  grant  the  Executive  the  amplest 
powers  to  act  as  an  Executive  and  should  hold  him 
to  stern  accountability  for  failure  so  to  act ;  but  it  should 
itself  do  the  actual  lawmaking  and  should  clearly  define 
the  lines  and  limits  of  action  and  should  retain  and  use 
the  fullest  powers  of  investigation  into  and  supervision 
over  such  action. 

"  'Sedition  is  a  form  of  treason.  It  is  an  offence 
against  the  country,  not  against  the  President.  At  this 
time  to  oppose  the  draft  or  sending  our  armies  to  Europe, 
to  uphold  Germany,  to  attack  our  Allies,  to  oppose  rais- 
ing the  money  necessary  to  carry  on  the  war,  are  at 
least  forms  of  moral  sedition,  while  to  act  as  a  German 
spy  or  to  encourage  German  spies,  to  use  money  or  in- 
trigue in  the  corrupt  service  of  Germany,  to  tamper  with 
our  war  manufactures  and  to  encourage  our  soldiers  to 
desert  or  to  fail  in  their  duty,  and  all  similar  actions, 

250 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  251 

are  forms  of  undoubtedly  illegal  sedition.  For  some  of 
these  offences  death  should  be  summarily  inflicted.  For 
all  the  punishment  should  be  severe. 

'  'The  Administration  has  been  gravely  remiss  in  deal- 
ing with  such  acts. 

"  'Free  speech,  exercised  both  individually  and  through 
a  free  press,  is  a  necessity  in  any  country  where  the 
people  are  themselves  free.  Our  government  is  the  serv- 
ant of  the  people,  whereas  in  Germany  it  is  the  master 
of  the  people.  This  is  because  the  American  people  are 
free  and  the  German  people  are  not  free.  The  President 
is  merely  the  most  important  among  a  large  number  of 
public  servants.  He  should  be  supported  or  opposed 
exactly  to  the  degree  which  is  warranted  by  his  good 
conduct  or  bad  conduct,  his  efficiency  or  inefficiency, 
in  rendering  loyal,  able  and  disinterested  service  to  the 
nation  as  a  whole.  Therefore,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
that  there  should  be  full  liberty  to  tell  the  truth  about 
his  acts,  and  this  means  that  it  is  exactly  as  necessary 
to  blame  him  when  he  does  wrong  as  to  praise  him  when 
he  does  right.  Any  other  attitude  in  an  American  citi- 
zen is  both  base  and  servile.  To  announce  that  there 
must  be  no  criticism  of  the  President,  or  that  we  are  to 
stand  by  the  President,  right  or  wrong,  is  not  only  un- 
patriotic and  servile,  but  is  morally  treasonable  to  the 
American  public.  Nothing  but  the  truth  should  be  spoken 
about  him  or  any  one  else.  But  it  is  even  more  impor- 
tant to  tell  the  truth,  pleasant  or  unpleasant,  about  him 
than  about  any  one  else. 

"  'During  the  last  year  the  Administration  has  shown 
itself  anxious  to  punish  the  newspapers  which  uphold  the 
war,  but  which  have  told  the  truth  about  the  Adminis- 
tration's failure  to  conduct  the  war  efficiently;  whereas 
it  has  failed  to  proceed  against  various  powerful  news- 
papers which  opposed  the  war  or  attacked  our  allies 
or  directly  or  indirectly  aided  Germany  against  this  coun- 
try, as  these  papers  upheld  the  Administration  and  de- 
fended its  inefficiency.  Therefore,  no  additional  power 
should  be  given  the  Administration  to  deal  with  papers 
for  criticising  the  Administration.  And,  moreover,  Con- 


252  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

gress  should  closely  scrutinize  the  way  the  Postmaster 
General  and  the  Attorney  General  have  already  exer- 
cised discrimination  between  the  papers  they  prosecuted 
and  the  papers  they  failed  to  prosecute. 

"  'Congress  should  give  the  President  full  power  for 
efficient  executive  action.  It  should  not  abrogate  its  own 
power.  It  should  define  how  he  is  to  reorganize  the 
Administration.  It  should  say  how  large  an  army  we 
are  to  have,  and  not  leave  the  decision  to  the  amiable 
Secretary  of  War  who  has  for  two  years  shown  such 
inefficiency.  It  should  declare  for  an  army  of  five  mil- 
lion men,  and  inform  the  Secretary  that  it  would  give 
him  more  the  minute  he  asks  for  more.' 

"Thereupon  Postmaster  General  Burleson  issued  the 
following  statement : 


"  'Office  of  Information, 
"  'Postofrke  Department, 


'  'May  8,  1918. 

"  'Postmaster  General  Burleson  to-day  made  the  fol- 
lowing statement  with  reference  to  the  editorial  signed 
by  Colonel  Roosevelt,  which  appeared  in  this  morning's 
paper : 

"  'Ex-President  Roosevelt,  in  the  newspapers  this 
morning,  made  the  following  statement: 

"  '  "During  the  last  year  the  Administration  has  shown 
itself  anxious  to  punish  the  newspapers  which  upheld 
the  war,  but  which  told  the  truth  about  the  Administra- 
tion's failure  to  conduct  the  war  efficiently;  whereas  it 
has  failed  to  proceed  against  various  powerful  newspa- 
pers which  opposed  the  war  or  attacked  our  allies  or 
directly  or  indirectly  aided  Germany  against  this  coun- 
try, as  those  papers  upheld  the  Administration  and  de- 
fended the  inefficiency." 

"  'This  statement,  taken  in  connection  with  other  pub- 
lished statements  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  is  manifestly  aimed 
at  the  administration  of  the  postal  service.  It  is  either 
true  or  false.  If  true,  I  am  utterly  unworthy  of  trust 
and  should  be  scourged  from  office  in  disgrace.  If  false, 
right-thinking  men  and  women  will  form  their  own 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  &OOSEVELT     253 

opinion  of  the  man  who  uttered  it.  Its  truth  or  falsity 
is  easily  demonstrable. s  I  invite  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  name 
the  papers  or  magazines  which  have  "upheld  the  war, 
but  which  told  the  truth  about  the  Administration's  fail- 
ure to  conduct  the  war  efficiently"  which  have  been  "pun- 
ished" by  the  Postoffice  Department.  I  invite  Mr.  Roose- 
velt to  name  the  newspapers  or  magazines,  powerful  or 
otherwise,  "which  have  opposed  the  war  and  attacked 
our  allies  or  directly  or  indirectly  aided  Germany  against 
this  country"  in  such  manner  as  to  violate  the  law  which 
have  not  been  proceeded  against  by  this  department. 

"  'Failure  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  respond  is 
to  admit  his  inability  to  do  so.' 

"As  this  was  issued  officially  by  the  Postmaster  Gen- 
eral, I  desire  that  a  permanent  record  shall  be  made  of  my 
answer  and  of  the  facts  that  led  up  to  my  statement  to 
which  the  Postmaster  General  took  exception,  and  which 
caused  him  to  issue  his  challenge  to  me  to  prove  my 
statement.  I  therefore  wish  to  put  these  facts  before 
you  in  full. 

"I  insert  as  appendixes  to  this  letter  the  editorial  in 
The  Metropolitan  Magazine,  in  the  issue  which  the  New 
York  postoffice  attempted  to  suppress,  this  editorial  be- 
ing entitled  'Put  the  Blame  Where  It  Belongs'  and  my 
article  in  The  Metropolitan  on  'Lincoln  and  Free  speech,' 
together  with  the  Metropolitan  statement  as  to  its  war 
record  (page  6,  May  Metropolitan}. 

"I  deal  with  Mr.  Burleson  and  his  actions  purely  be- 
cause he  is  the  representative  of  President  Wilson,  ex- 
actly as  is  Secretary  Baker,  exactly  as  is  Mr.  Creel. 
President  Wilson  is  responsible  for  everything  that  Post- 
master General  Burleson  and  Secretary  Baker  and  Mr. 
Creel  do,  or  leave  undone.  Nothing  that  any  one  of  these 
gentlemen  says,  nothing  that  any  one  of  them  does,  and 
nothing  that  any  one  of  them  leaves  undone  is  of  the 
slightest  importance,  except  because  he  is  President  Wil- 
son's representative,  appointed  by  President  Wilson  to  a 
position  of  high  governmental  importance  in  a  great  crisis 
and  serving  as  the  medium  through  which  President 
Wilson  carries  out  his  policies  affecting  this  country. 


254  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

This  is,  of  course,  equally  true  of  all  of  President  Wil- 
son's other  appointees. 

"I  have  scant  patience  with  the  timidity  or  the  folly 
which  dares  not  hold  accountable  the  source  of  power, 
and  only  ventures  to  express  displeasure  with  the  in- 
strument through  which  the  power  is  exercised.  Messrs. 
Burleson,  Baker,  Creel  and  their  associates  possess  no 
importance  whatever,  except  that  accruing  to  them  be- 
cause it  is  through  them  that  the  President  speaks  and 
acts  or  refuses  or  fails  to  act.  As  the  above  article 
shows,  I  was  not  speaking  of  Mr.  Burleson  in  particular, 
but  of  the  Administration,  of  which  he  is  a  part;  of 
the  President,  whose  servant  he  is. 

"The  reason  for  my  comment  in  The  Kansas  City 
Star  and  for  my  previous  article  in  The  Metropolitan 
Magazine  is  that  since  the  war  began  the  Administra- 
tion has  used  the  very  great  war  powers  of  the  govern- 
ment over  the  public  press  to  stifle  honest  criticism 
of  governmental  inefficiency  or  misconduct,  while  con- 
doning (which  necessarily  means  encouraging)  pro- 
Germans,  anti-Ally  and  therefore  anti-American  agita- 
tion in  certain  powerful  papers  which  defended  this  in- 
efficiency and  misconduct;  and  it  has  sought  from  Con- 
gress a  great  addition  to  the  already  existing  power  it 
has  thus  misused. 

"I  believe  that  the  First  Article  of  the  Constitution 
guarantees  the  right  of  the  people  to  criticise  truthfully 
the  conduct  of  their  public  servants,  and  that  this  right 
cannot  be  taken  away  by  any  law.  But  the  average  man 
is  naturally  and  properly  afraid  to  challenge  a  law  backed 
by  the  whole  power  of  the  United  States  government, 
even  although  it  may  be  his  belief  that  ultimately  the 
law  will  be  held  unconstitutional. 

"Our  governmental  officers,  from  the  President  down, 
are  of  right  the  servants  of  the  people,  not  the  rulers  of 
the  people.  This  is  the  fundamental  difference  between 
an  autocracy  and  a  democracy.  The  Hohenzollerns  are 
the  rulers  of  Germany,  and  the  Germans  are  the  subjects 
of  the  Hohenzollerns,  not  their  fellow  citizens.  On  the 
contrary,  our  Presidents  are  not  the  rulers  of  the  Ameri- 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  255 

can  people,  but  the  servants  of  the  American  people,  and 
the  rest  of  the  people  are  their  fellow  citizens. 

"Our  duty  is  to  stand  by  the  country.  It  is  our  duty 
to  stand  by  the  President — as  by  every  other  official — 
just  so  long  as  he  stands  by  the  country.  It  is  no  less 
our  duty  to  oppose  him  whenever,  and  to  the  extent  that, 
he  does  not  stand  by  the  country.  If  we  fail  to  oppose 
him  under  such  conditions  we  are  guilty  of  moral  treason 
to  the  country.  The  President  and  our  other  public  offi- 
cials are  subject  to  the  laws  just  like  the  rest  of  us.  It 
is  an  infamy  untruthfully  to  assail  our  public  servants — 
or  any  one  else.  But  it  is  our  duty  to  tell  the  truth  about 
our  public  servants,  whether  the  truth  be  pleasant  or  un- 
pleasant. The  higher  the  public  servant  and  the  more 
important  his  task,  the  more  careful  we  should  be  to 
speak  only  the  truth  about  him ;  and  the  more  necessary 
it  is  that  we  should  tell  the  full  truth  about  him. 

"During  the  past  year  the  action  of  the  Administration, 
taken  largely  through  the  Postoffice  Department  has  been 
such  as  to  render  it  a  matter  of  some  danger  for  any  man, 
and  especially  any  newspaper,  to  speak  the  truth,  if  that 
truth  be  unpleasant  to  the  governmental  authorities  at 
Washington.  The  effect  of  this  attitude  has  been  very 
marked  politically.  Such  coercive  power  tends  to  make 
upright  men,  even  although  they  are  strong  men,  cautious 
about  telling  truths  which  ought  to  be  told.  It  forces 
weak  men  to  praise  the  Administration  whether  it  does 
well  or  ill.  It  invites  unscrupulous  men  who  desire  to 
serve  Germany  to  gain  license  to  do  so  and  to  secure  ad- 
vantages by  praising  the  Administration,  especially  when 
it  has  acted  wrongfully  or  inefficiently  and  by  supporting 
it  politically.  There  are  cases  where  all  competent  ana 
honest  observers  are  morally  certain,  that  political  sup- 
port has  been  given,  and  is  now  being  given,  to  the  Ad- 
ministration by  various  newspapers,  especially  German- 
American  and  semi-socialistic  newspapers,  because  of  the 
club  thus  held  over  them  by  the  Administration. 

"From  the  very  nature  of  the  case  there  can  rarely 
be  positive  proof  in  such  cases.  But  as  regards  the  most 
striking  cases  of  favouritism,  those  concerning  the  Hearst 


256  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

papers,  as  compared  with  the  suppression  of  Tom  Wat- 
son's paper,  and  the  attack  (for  nominally  wholly  dif- 
ferent reasons)  on  The  Metropolitan,  I  herein  give  the 
facts  which  prove  exactly  what  I  have  alleged. 

"The  Postmaster  General  has  raised  the  issue:  I  meet 
it  squarely,  and  he  shall  not  evade  it.  The  Administration 
has  successfully  endeavoured  to  prevent  expression  of 
opinion  hostile  to  it  and  to  put  a  premium  upon  support- 
ing the  President  personally  and  politically  without  re- 
gard to  whether  his  actions  are  detrimental  or  beneficial 
to  the  country. 

"The  Administration,  through  the  Publicity  Bureau, 
under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Creel,  is  conducting  a  gigantic 
news  propaganda  with  the  public  money.  Mr.  Creel's 
activities  are  exercised  nominally  on  behalf  of  the  coun- 
try, but  in  reality  primarily  on  behalf  of  the  Administra- 
tion. Mr.  Creel  announces  and  publishes  himself  as  the 
special  representative  of  the  President,  and  is  permitted 
by  the  President  so  to  announce  and  publish  himself.  He 
assails  the  publications  that  truthfully  expose  the  short- 
comings of  the  Administration,  and,  without  regard  to 
the  facts,  he,  personally  and  through  his  bureau,  actively 
upholds  the  Administration  as  regards  those  matters,  such 
as  the  aircraft  programme,  in  which  there  have  been 
grave  governmental  shortcomings.  This  is  partisan  po- 
litical propaganda  of  the  very  worst  type,  carried  on  with 
public  moneys,  under  the  guise  of  public  work.  The 
editor  of  The  Metropolitan  wrote  Mr.  Creel,  on  March  7: 

"  'Is  it  right  that  you  should  use  the  time  and  money 
of  your  bureau,  which  is  supported  by  the  American  tax- 
payers, to  defend  members  of  the  Administration  from 
criticism  in  the  public  press?  Are  you  not  in  fact  the 
personal  press  agent  of  the  President  and  members  of 
the  Administration?' 

"What  the  editor  of  The  Metropolitan  thus  stated  in  the 
form  of  a  query  should  be  stated  affirmatively  as  an  un- 
questioned fact. 

"I  have  said  so  much  by  way  of  making  the  general 
situation  clear.  Now,  as  to  Postmaster  General  Burle- 
son's  challenge.  This  can  be  divided  into  two  parts: 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT     257 

First,  Mr.  Burleson  denies  that  the  Administration  has 
ever  discriminated  improperly  against  any  publication, 
and,  second,  he  denies  that  it  has  ever  failed  to  proceed 
against  any  publication  which  ought  to  have  been  pro- 
ceeded against. " 

"First — The  Metropolitan  Magazine,  Collier's  Weekly 
and  The  New  York  Tribune  have  consistently  upheld  the 
war.  They  eagerly  demanded  that  we  should  go  to  war ; 
they  supported  the  President  in  going  to  war ;  they  have 
cordially  upheld  every  measure  for  prosecuting  the  war. 
But  they  have  also  told  not  all  of  the  truth,  but  some 
small  portion  of  the  truth,  which  it  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  tell,  about  the  Administration's  failure  to  conduct 
the  war  efficiently.  They  have  only  told  even  this  small 
portion  of  the  truth  when  it  was  imperative  so  to  do  in 
order  to  speed  up  the  war  and  to  prevent  perseverance  in 
inefficiency.  All  three  publications  have  been  attacked 
by  Mr.  Creel  officially,  speaking  as  President  Wilson's 
representative  and  'as  giving  a  message  from  the  United 
States  government  to  the  American  people.'  (I  quote 
from  The  Independent.) 

"The  Postoffice  Department,  through  the  New  York 
postmaster,  on  March  2  last  notified  the  publishers  of 
The  Metropolitan  Magazine  that  its  March  issue  was  non- 
mailable  under  the  espionage  act.  This  action  was  widely 
published  throughout  the  country.  It  was  calculated  to 
do  great  damage  to  The  Metropolitan.  It  was  precisely 
the  kind  of  action  which,  as  I  know  by  having  been  so 
assured  again  and  again  by  various  editors,  was  the  rea- 
son why  these  editors  have  been  afraid  to  tell  the  truth 
or  even  a  small  part  of  the  truth  about  our  governmental 
inefficiency  or  misdeeds. 

"The  article  on  which  the  action  was  nominally  based 
was  by  a  man  who  had  written  articles  of  exactly  the 
same  kind  in  a  publication,  The  New  Republic,  which, 
however,  is  a  political  supporter  of  Mfr.  Wilson,  and  has 
not  been  interfered  with.  The  Metropolitan  is  not  a  po- 
litical supporter  of  Mr.  Wilson,  and  was  interfered  with, 
yet  The  Metropolitan  has  upheld  the  war  more  zealously 
ithan  The  New,  Republic. 


258  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"The  Metropolitan  immediately  asked  the  postmaster  of 
New  York  for  the  grounds  of  his  action,  but  got  no 
answer.  On  March  9  it  telegraphed  the  Postmaster  Gen- 
eral, asking  whether  the  action  was  taken  by  the  order 
of  the  Postmaster  General  and  if  not  what  steps  the 
Postmaster  General  would  fake  to  repair  the  damage 
done  to  the  Metropolitan  Magazine. 

"On  March  n  the  Postmaster  General  replied  to  the 
Metropolitan,  stating  that  accusations  had  been  made 
that  an  article  in  the  Metropolitan  was  a  traitorous  ef- 
fusion, but  that  he  did  not  know  whether  the  complaints 
were  justified,  and  that  no  order  had  been  issued  about 
it  by  the  department.  He  did  not  answer  the  Metropoli- 
tan's question  as  to  what  steps  would  be  taken  to  repair 
the  damage  done  it  by  the  conduct  of  the  New  York 
postmaster. 

"On  the  same  day,  the  New  York  postmaster  wrote 
the  Metropolitan  reversing  his  action  of  March  2,  but 
making  no  apology,  and  making  no  excuse. 

"On  March  12,  the  editor  of  the  Metropolitan  wrote 
to  Mr.  Burleson  saying,  among  other  things,  'You  must 
remember  that  there  are  a  great  number  of  pacifists  and 
pro-Germans  in  this  country  who  would  willingly  put  the 
Metropolitan  Magazine  out  of  business  because  it  is  the 
most  strongly  pro-Ally  and  anti-German  publication  in 
the  country,'  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  a  state- 
ment attributed  to  the  Solicior  General  of  the  department 
was  obviously  not  in  accord  with  the  facts,  and  that  the 
Metropolitan  could  not  accept  newspaper  statements  with- 
out confirmation  from  the  Postmaster  General,  and  ask- 
ing for  a  written  statement  from  the  Postmaster  General 
in  the  matter.  He  has  received  no  such  statement,  nor 
has  any  attempt  been  made  by  the  Postoffice  Department 
to  remedy  the  wrong  it  did  by  the  postmaster  at  New 
York. 

"At  the  same  time  one  of  the  advertisers  in  The  Met- 
ropolitan, Mr.  E.  M.  Mansur,  of  Floral  Park,  N.  Y.,  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  a  man  in  Chicago  suggesting  that  he 
withdraw  his  advertisement  because  of  the  editorial  in 
The  Metropolitan  Magazine.  Mr.  Mansur  declined  to 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  £59 

withdraw  it.  On  April  3  he  notified  The  Metropolitan 
that  a  special  agent  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Justice,  named  James  A.  Corcoran,  with  shield  No.  436, 
giving  his  address  as  Box  241,  Park  Row,  New  York 
City,  called  on  him,  with  copies  of  the  letters  of  this 
Chicago  man  to  him  and  of  the  replies,  and  asked  if 
Mr.  Mansur  had  stopped  advertising,  and  wanted  to  know 
if  he  was  going  on  advertising  next  year,  and  then  if  he 
were  an  American  citizen.  The  last  query,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  first  two,  contained,  of  course,  an  im- 
plication that  was  in  effect  a  threat. 

"This  shows  that  the  Department  of  Justice  had  knowl- 
edge of  the  attempt  to  boycott  The  Metropolitan  and  lent 
its  official  power  to  further  it,  unless  the  man  in  ques- 
tion had  stolen  the  special  agent's  shield  which  he  pos- 
sessed and  forged  his  name  and  address. 

"The  above  facts  Mr.  Burleson  has  not  denied  and 
cannot  truthfully  deny,  and  they  absolutely  demonstrate 
the  exactness  of  my  statement,  so  far  as  the  Administra- 
tion's effort  to  punish  the  publications  which  upheld  the 
war  but  have  told  the  truth  about  the  Administration's 
failure  to  conduct  the  war  efficiently. 

"Now  for  the  second  part  of  my  statement :  The  prime 
example  of  failure  by  the  Administration  to  proceed 
against  newspapers  which  oppose  the  war  or  attack  our 
allies  and  therefore  directly  or  indirectly  aid  Germany 
is  afforded  by  the  failure  of  the  Administration  to  deal 
with  Mr.  Hearst's  papers  as  it  has  dealt  with  certain 
other  papers.  Mr.  Hearst  is  a  very  wealthy  man,  reputed 
to  be  much  more  than  a  millionaire,  owning  a  dozen 
newspapers,  more  or  less,  and  a  half  dozen  magazines, 
in  different  parts  of  the  country. 

"At  the  very  beginning  of  the  war  the  government 
proceeded  successfully  against  Tom  Watson's  publication 
in  Georgia.  I  entirely  disagreed  with  Tom  Watson's 
general  political  philosophy ;  I  was  utterly  opposed  to  his 
contention  that  drafted  men  should  not  be  sent  overseas 
to  fight ;  I  regarded  him  as  a  narrow,  although  an  up- 
right and  sincere,  man. 

"But  he  had  done  nothing  that  was  anything  like  as 


260  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

dangerous  to  this  country  and  our  allies  and  as  helpful 
to  Germany  as  Mr.  Hearst  was  at  that  very  time  doing. 

"The  circulation  of  Mr.  Watson's  paper  was  very 
small,  compared  to  Mr.  Hearst's  papers ;  his  wealth  and 
influence  were  infinitesimal,  compared  to  Mr.  Hearst's 
wealth  and  influence,  and  he  had  denounced  Germany 
and  even  advocated  war  against  Germany,  whereas  Mr. 
Hearst  had  in  numerous  editorials  opposed  our  going  to 
war,  attacked  Germany's  foes  and  defended  Germany. 

"Yet  the  Administration  crushed  Tom  Watson,  while 
it  first  tolerated  and  then  encouraged  wealthy,  powerful, 
pro-German  and  anti-war  Mr.  Hearst. 

"Tom  Watson's  paper  was  not  the  only  small  paper 
the  Postmaster  General  attacked  and  hampered  for  doing 
far  less  than  Mr.  Hearst's  papers  had  done.  The  New 
York  News  is  edited  by  George  W.  Harris,  a  coloured 
man,  for  the  coloured  race.  Under  date  of  May  2,  last, 
Mr.  Harris,  the  editor,  received  a  notice  from  the  post- 
master of  New  York  that  the  issue  of  that  date  had  been 
'withheld  from  despatch  through  the  mails,  pending  ad- 
vice from  the  solicitor  for  the  Postoffice  Department  as 
to  whether  this  issue  is  unmailable.'  One  of  the  editors 
of  the  paper  informs  me  that  Mr.  Harris  called  at  the 
Postoffice  in  New  York  to  ascertain  the  reason  of  this 
order,  but  was  not  given  any  reason. 

"The  only  explanation  the  editors  could  think  of  was 
that  the  paper  had  contained  a  protest  against  an  alleged 
order  of  a  colonel  in  the  army  'directing  coloured  officers 
not  to  enforce  upon  white  inferiors  a  military  salute.' 
Certainly  nothing  in  this  humble  paper  warranted  the 
Administration,  through  the  Postoffice  Department,  in 
attacking  it  while  at  the  same  time  not  venturing  to  in- 
terfere with  the  wealthy  Hearst  papers. 

"Mr.  Burleson,  however,  while  he  will  pardon  certain 
pro-Administration  papers,  even  although  they  are  anti- 
war, will  nevertheless  occasionally  attack  not  only  anti- 
war but  pro-war,  and  even  pro-Administration  radical 
papers,  if  he  objects  to  their  radicalism.  Two  entirely 
responsible  persons  have  called  my  attention  to  the  sup- 
pression of  one  issue  of  a  radical  magazine  called  The 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT    261 

Public.  This  has  been  an  entirely  pro-war  magazine. 
In  its  issue  of  March  3Oth  it  urged  editorially  'heavier 
taxation  of  unearned  incomes  and  of  excess  profits,'  and 
the  raising  of  more  money  by  direct  taxation  in  prefer- 
ence to  bond  issues. 

"Apparently,  as  far  as  the  editors  can  make  out,  it 
was  because  of  this  article  this  issue  was  suppressed.  A 
former  editor  of  the  paper  writes  me  that  it  is  possible 
that  Mr.  Burleson  objected  to  the  paper  because  of  an 
account  of  an  interview  with  him  on  October  I2th  last 
in  which  he  was  quoted  as  stating  his  lack  of  sympathy 
with  the  proposition  that  a  man  ought  to  get  his  money 
from  the  ownership  of  land  which  was  tilled  by  tenants 
on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  be  expected  to  favour 
a  public  policy  where  his  interest  lay  on  the  other  side 
of  the  proposition.  'As  a  landowner  you  can't  expect  me 
to  believe  that,'  he  is  reported  as  saying. 

"It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  any  steps  were 
taken  because  of  this  article.  The  question,  therefore, 
is  as  to  the  right  of  The  Public  to  print  the  editorial  in 
the  issue  of  March  30.  The  question  as  to  our  belief 
or  our  disbelief  in  the  soundness  of  this  editorial  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  case.  There  are  plenty 
of  the  conservative  doctrine,  with  which  I  emphatically 
disagree,  and  plenty  of  radical  doctrine,  with  which  I 
disagree,  and  if  it  should  happen  that  on  either  side  of 
the  case  I  found  myself  in  agreement  with  Mr.  Burleson 
I  should,  nevertheless,  adhere  to  my  beliefs.  But  unless 
these  doctrines  were  seditious  or  represented  a  kind  of 
immorality  and  incitement  to  violence  or  other  unlawful 
conduct  which  would  properly  bring  them  under  the  law, 
I  would  fight  as  stoutly  for  the  right  of  the  editor  to 
publish  them  as  I  would  fight  for  my  own  right  to  pub- 
lish articles  against  them. 

"Such  action  as  that  of  Mr.  Burleson  does  not  help 
the  war ;  on  the  contrary,  it  tends  to  keep  people  so  angry 
with  the  agents  of  the  war  that  they  become  and  remain 
hostile  to  the  war  itself. 

"There  could  be  no  more  striking  example  of  dis- 
crimination than  that  furnished  by  the  contrast  between 


THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

the  treatment  of  a  paper  like  Mr.  Watson's  and  papers 
like  those  of  Mr.  Hearst.  There  was  severity  of  treat- 
ment to  the  helpless,  while  the  strong  were  given  com- 
plete immunity. 

"There  is  no  need  to  rely  upon  my  statement  that  The 
Metropolitan  has  been  a  loyal,  pro-war,  pro-American 
publication.  In  a  letter  published  by  Mr.  Creel  since  Mr. 
Burleson's  statement  was  published,  he  states: 

"  'We  reply  to  The  Metropolitan  for  the  very  reason 
that  we  do  not  reply  to  anti-war  or  anti-American  papers. 
They  are  known  to  be  what  they  are,  but  the  reputation 
of  The  Metropolitan  for  loyalty  gives  weight  to  its  mis- 
statements.' 

"This  is,  as  shown  by  the  use  of  the  word  'we/  a 
complete  and  full  acknowledgment  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
Creel  that  my  statements  with  regard  to  the  Administra- 
tion in  this  matter  are  correct.  It  is  a  complete  and  full 
acknowledgment  that  the  Administration  acts  against  a 
publication  whose  loyalty  is  unquestioned,  but  which  at- 
tacks the  kind  of  governmental  inefficiency  which  tells 
in  favour  of  Germany,  although  at  the  same  time  the 
Administration  does  not  act  against  the  'anti-war  or  anti- 
American  papers' — so  long,  I  may  add  incidentally,  as 
these  papers  champion  the  Administration  and  apologise 
for  the  inefficiency  of  its  actions. 

"Since  the  Postmaster  General's  challenge  to  me  was 
made  public,  private  citizens  have  taken  against  the 
Hearst  papers  the  action  which  the  Administration  has 
refused  to  take.  The  New  York  American  in  publishing 
President  Wilson's  Memorial  Day  proclamation  omitted 
that  part  of  the  proclamation  which  contained  the  prayer 
for  victory,  although  it  printed  the  part  containing  the 
prayer  for  peace — a  proceeding  entirely  in  consonance 
with  Mr.  Hearst's  advocacy  of  a  'peace  without  victory.' 

"In  Poughkeepsie,  according  to  a  special  despatch  to 
The  New  York  Herald  of  May  13,  a  party  of  Grand 
Army  veterans  protested  against  such  action  by  procuring 
every  available  copy  of  The  American  and  burning  them 
in  the  Courthouse  Square,  the  veterans  explaining, 
through  Major  Louis  C.  Dietz,  organiser  of  the  Local 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  268 

Loyal  Service  League,  that  they  did  this  because  they  re- 
garded the  acfion  of  The  New  York  American  as  an  at- 
tempt 'to  fool  the  people  of  this  country  by  publishing 
articles  that  are  perfectly  agreeable  to  the  Kaiser's  gov- 
ernment and  to  traitors  and  pro-Germans  that  are  in  this 
country.' 

"At  the  same  time,  according  to  the  statements  in  The 
New  York  Times  and  New  York  World,  the  Mayor  and 
Common  Council  of  Mount  Vernon,  N.  Y.,  barred  the 
Hearst  papers  for  the  period  of  the  war  from  Mount 
Vernon,  the  mover  of  the  ordinance  reading  various  ex- 
tracts from  Mr.  Hearst's  papers,  which,  he  said,  moved 
him  to  take  the  action  he  did,  while  the  Mayor  announced 
that  he  signed  the  bill  because  he  wished  to  put  a  curb 
on  the  Kaiser  or  any  of  his  agents,  and  that  Mount  Ver- 
non will  not  stand  for  anything  or  any  one  not  wholly 
American  at  this  time/ 

"The  Mayor  of  Summit,  N.  J.,  is  reported  to  have 
succeeded  in  getting  the  newsdealers  to  refuse  to  handle 
the  Hearst  publications. 

"I  have  before  me  at  the  moment  copies  of  The  New 
York  American  editorials  of  May  n,  May  20,  June  I, 
1915,  and  an  editorial  of  June  6,  1915,  signed  by  Mr. 
Hearst  himself,  dealing  with  the  Lusitania  question  and 
stating  that  Germany's  action  was  right  about  the  Lusi- 
tania, that  'the  Lusitania  incident  is,  of  course,  no  cause 
for  a  declaration  of  war'  and  that  we  had  no  just  cause 
for  complaint  in  the  matter — saying  that  we  'had  no 
right  to  make  this  demand  .  .  .  that  Germany  suspend 
her  submarine  warfare  against  the  commerce  of  the  Al- 
lies,' that  we  had  'no  right  to  question  Germany's  use  of 
submarines  in  her  warfare  upon  British  commerce'  and 
that  the  Lusitania  was  an  English  vessel  and  properly 
'subject  to  destruction,'  and  that  its  destruction  by  the 
German  submarine  was  in  accordance  with  the  authorised 
and  accepted  rules  of  warfare  and  that  Germany's  meth- 
ods of  submarine  warfare  were  none  of  our  business !' 

"The  Hearst  papers  continued  to  try  to  make  our  peo- 
ple range  themselves  against  England,  and  therefore  in 
favour  of  Germany,  and  to  appeal  to  the  people  of  the 


264  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

United  States  to  put  the  safety  of  their  dollars  above 
the  safety  of  their  women  and  children. 

"In  the  issue  of  The  New  York  American  of  August 
25,  1915,  is  an  editorial  headed  'Must  the  United  States 
Be  a  Catspaw  for  England  against  Germany?'  There  is 
not  a  word  in  this  editorial  about  the  German  murder 
of  our  women  and  children  on  the  high  seas,  not  a  word 
protesting  against  Germany's  taking  the  lives  of  our  citi- 
zens, but  a  scream  against  England  because  she  had  made 
cotton  contraband  of  war!  No  American  can  read  this 
editorial  in  the  Hearst  papers  of  that  date  without  hang- 
ing his  head  in  shame  that  such  papers  should  at  this 
time  be  backed  by  the  American  Administration. 

"Let  the  Administration  recall  that  Mr.  Hearst  was 
writing  these  editorials  week  after  week,  month  after 
month  during  the  time  succeeding  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania. 

"On  December  5  last  Secretary  Baker,  the  official  rep- 
resentative of  the  President  in  all  matters  relating  to 
the  war,  said,  as  reported  in  the  public  press : 

"  'From  the  moment  the  Lusitania  was  sent  to  a  watery 
grave  by  the  hands  of  the  assassin  the  United  States  had 
only  two  choices.  The  United  States  could  have  crawled 
on  its  knees  to  the  Hohenzollerns,  crying  out  that  their 
frightfulness  and  their  military  efficiency  were  too  great 
and  that  we  submit  and  become  their  vassal,  or,  as  an 
alternative,  we  could  fight.  We  chose  to  fight.' 

"This  is  the  description  by  President  Wilson's  Secre- 
tary of  War  of  the  course  (that  we  become  the  vassal 
of  Germany)  which  Mr.  Hearst,  through  his  papers,  did 
his  utmost  to  get  the  American  people  to  adopt. 

"After  we  went  into  the  war,  on  April  n,  1917,  'Mir. 
Hearst  wrote:  'Stripping  our  country  of  men,  money 
and  food  is  a  dangerous  policy.  Our  earnest  suggestion 
to  the  Congress  is  that  it  imperatively  refuse  to  permit 
the  further  draining  of  our  food  supplies  and  our  military 
supplies  to  Europe.'  This  was  equivalent  to  a  demand 
that  after  going  to  war  we  should  turn  around  and  help 
Germany  more  than  if  we  had  continued  to  remain 
neutral. 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT     265 

"On  April  24,  1917,  The  New  York  American  said: 
'The  painful  truth  is  that  we  are  being  practically  used 
as  a  mere  reinforcement  of  England's  warfare  and  Eng- 
land's future  aggrandisement.'  This  was  an  effort  against 
our  ally  and  an  effort  to  pander  to  anti-English  prejudice 
in  the  interest  of  our  foes,  and  nothing  else. 

"On  May  17  it  advocated  our  spending  all  our  money 
on  preparing  our  army  and  navy  here  at  home  'and  so- 
compelling  Germany  if  she  wants  to  fight  to  come  to  us/ 
which  was,  of  course,  equivalent  to  arguing  that  we  would 
render  no  aid  to  defeat  Germany  until  she  had  defeated 
our  allies  and  was  preparing  to  attack  us  single-handed. 

"On  May  25  the  same  paper  said  of  the  efforts  to 
float  the  Liberty  Loan:  'If  you  want  our  food  and 
wealth  sent  abroad  to  help  suffering  England,  buy  a 
Liberty  bond,  furnish  the  sinews  of  war.'  In  view  of 
Hearst's  continued  effort  to  excite  hatred  between  the 
United  States  and  England,  the  implication  of  this  sen- 
tence cannot  be  mistaken.  In  the  very  next  sentence  he 
subtly  attempts  to  appeal  to  all  men  with  a  feeling  of 
affection  for  Germany  by  intimating  that  whoever  pur- 
chased a  Liberty  bond  desired  to  see  Germany  not  merely 
defeated  but  'dismembered.' 

"On  July  27  The  New  York  American  spoke  of  our 
soldiers  being  sent  over  'to  be  offered  up  in  bloody  sacri- 
fice to  the  ambition  of  contending  nations  on  foreign 
battlefields.'  On  November  22,  it  spoke  of  our  'inter- 
fering in  Europe's  quarrels.' 

"It  is  absolutely  impossible  to  reconcile  the  govern- 
ment's action  in  proceeding  against  Tom  Watson's  paper 
with  its  failure  to  proceed  against  Mr.  Hearst's  papers 
on  any  theory  that  justice  was  to  be  done  alike  to  the 
strong  and  to  the  weak. 

"The  above  quotations  from  Mr.  Hearst's  papers,  and 
many  others  like  them,  may  be  found  in  recent  issues  of 
The  New  York  Tribune.  The  government  had  full  no- 
tice about  Hearst  because  the  Allies  had  barred  him  from 
the  cable  service,  and  only  through  the  good  offices  of 
this  government  have  these  privileges  just  now  been  re- 
stored to  Mr.  Hearst. 


S66  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"Nor  is  this  all.  A  mass  meeting  of  thousands  of  citi- 
zens of  New  York  was  held  in  Carnegie  Hall  on  No- 
vember 2,  1917,  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Defence  Society  to  protest  against  the  spirit  of  disloyalty 
shown  by  certain  persons,  especially  Mr.  Hearst.  James 
M.  Beck  delivered  an  address  dealing  for  the  most  part 
with  Mr.  Hearst.  This  portion  of  the  address  I  have 
also  included  in  the  appendices.  The  New  York  Times, 
among  other  papers,  printed  this  address  almost  in  full. 

"The  government,  therefore,  had  full  warning  and  full 
knowledge  of  all  of  Mr.  Hearst's  activities.  Mr.  Hearst's 
papers  have  defended  our  war.  inefficiencies,  have  apolo- 
gised for  the  failures  in  the  war  programme,  and  have 
even  denied  such  breakdowns  as  that  in  the  aircraft  pro- 
gramme. 

"It  is  true  that  since  we  entered  the  war  Mr.  Hearst 
has  at  various  times  issued  editorials  professing  great 
patriotic  zeal,  but  it  was  at  the  very  time  when  in  other 
editorials  he  was  attacking  the  allies  of  America,  Eng- 
land and  Japan,  in  the  most  offensive  way,  and  at  the 
very  time  when  he  was  upholding  the  Russian  Bolshe- 
vists, who  had  made  Russia  a  traitor  to  the  free  nations 
of  the  world  and  a  subservient  ally  of  the  German  autoc- 
racy. Such  action  cannot  fail  to  give  aid  and  comfort 
to  Germany. 

"By  turning  to  The  New  York  Tribune  of  May  8,  1918, 
Postmaster  General  Burleson  will  find  an  ardent  tribute 
paid  by  the  former  German  correspondent  of  the  Kol- 
nische  Zeitung  to  Mr.  Hearst  and  Mr.  Hearst's  editor- 
in-chief,  Arthur  Brisbane,  for  having  been  'auxiliaries  of 
valued  influence'  to  Germany,  especially  because  of  'the 
editorials  in  the  Hearst  newspapers.' 

"In  The  New  York  Times  of  August  14,  1917,  there 
is  a  quotation  by  special  cable,  via  The  Hague,  from  the 
German  Vossische  Zeitung  which  states  that  the  'anti-war 
movement  in  America  is  gaining  in  strength'  and  that 
'war  propagandists  in  the  New  York  press  have  lately  met 
stout  resistance  from  no  other  than  Mr.  Hearst  and  his 
thirty  papers,  by  the  issuance  of  warnings  to  the  people 
about  the  danger  of  plunging  into  European  war,'  and 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT    267 

continues  to  speak  of  'the  generous  nature  of  the  work 
he  had  done  for  Germany'  and  that  Mr.  Hearst  'preached* 
in  behalf  of  the  Central  Powers.  Mr.  Hearst  earned  the 
praise  thus  given  him  by  the  servants  of  the  Kaiser,  and 
during  the  time  when  he  was  earning  it  the  Kaiser  was 
saying  to  Ambassador  Gerard,  as  the  latter  recites  in 
his  book:  'America  had  better  look  out  after  this  war. 
I  shall  stand  no  nonsense  from  America  after  the  war'— 
which  the  ambassador  reported  to  the  Administration  at 
Washington,  without,  by  the  way,  producing  any  effect 
upon  the  Administration. 

"Mr.  Brisbane,  in  The  Washington  Times,  ably  fol- 
lowed Mr.  Hearst's  lead.  On  August  8,  1917,  it  said  'the 
most  powerful  and  effective  peace  worker  in  this  country 
is  William  Randolph  Hearst.  The  world  wants  peace. 
It  is  more  important  than  victory.'  On  July  16,  1917, 
when  Russia  was  under  a  democratic  government  and 
still  a  fighting  ally  of  the  United  States  against  Germany, 
Mr.  Brisbane's  paper,  The  W\ashington  Times,  said: 

"  'Anarchy  rules  in  Russia — somebody  must  do  some- 
thing. The  natural  somebody  is  Germany,  right  next 
door  to  Russia  .  .  .  the  civilisation  of  Western  Europe 
may  be  very  grateful  to  Germany  if  the  war  finds  Ger- 
many with  enough  strength  left  to  undertake  the  main- 
taining of  order  in  Russia — developing  the  resources  there 
and  making  a  few  billions  of  rubles  in  the  process.' 

"It  seems  literally  incredible  that  a  paper  making  an 
utterance  like  this  could  have  been  left  unmolested  by  an 
Administration  that  had  proceeded  against  Tom 
Watson — and  this  paper  was  published  within  two  blocks 
of  the  White  House. 

"On  August  21,  1917,  this  paper  said  'We  have  lent 
to  our  Allies  about  two  thousand  millions  .  .  .  this  we 
lent  our  Allies  to  help  in  the  game  of  murder.' 

"I  commend  these  facts  to  Mr.  Burleson,  and  also  to 
his  Cabinet  associate,  Mr.  Daniels,  in  view  of  their  re- 
cent telegrams  of  congratulation  to  Mr.  Brisbane  upon 
assuming  charge  of  certain  Chicago  papers,  reported  as 
being  Hearst  papers.  These  telegrams  have  been  pub- 
lished in  one  of  Mr.  Hearst's  New  York  papers,  The 


*68  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Evening  Journal.  Mir.  Burleson  says  of  Mr.  Hearst's 
alter  ego  that  he  'congratulates'  the  people  of  Chicago 
because  they  are  to  have  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Brisbane's 
'able  and  unselfish  efforts  ...  I  indulge  the  hope  that 
(his  paper)  will  always  stand  for  justice  and  freedom 
and  true  democratic  government'  And  Mr.  Daniels  goes 
Mr.  Burleson  one  better  in  expressing  the  belief  that 
Mr.  Brisbane  will  preach  'patriotism'  and  'civic  right- 
eousness.' 

"Mr.  Burleson  has  stated  that  he  has  received  'more 
complaints'  about  my  writings  than  about  those  of  MrJ 
Hearst.  In  view  of  Mr.  Burleson's  record  and  actions, 
there  is  small  cause  foi  wonder  in  this.  Every  pro- 
German  and  anti- American,  every  believer  in  a  feeble 
American  war  and  a  triumphant  German  peace,  every 
man  who  follows  Mr.  Hearst,  would  naturally  appeal  for 
sympathy  to  Mr.  Burleson  in  denunciation  ofjwhat  I  have, 
done. 

"Messrs.  Hearst  and  Brisbane  through  their  papers1 
have  been  unceasing  in  their  attacks  upon  England  and 
Japan.  The  New  Work  American  on  December  20,  1917,' 
said  that  'the  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  then  ne- 
gotiated between  Japan  and  England  was  aimed  at  the 
United  States.'  This  deliberate  falsehood  was  published 
at  the  very  time  that  England  was  defending  us  with  her 
fleet  and  her  army.  There  could  be  no  meaner  example 
of  treachery  to  our  allies  and  of  subservience  to  our 
enemy.  It  was  a  thousand  times  more  worth  the  atten- 
tion of  Mr.  Burleson  than  anything  done  by  the 
small  papers  against  which  the  Postoffice  Department 
did  act. 

"On  September  15,  1917,  Mr.  Hearst's  plea  for  a  Ger- 
man peace  in  The  New  York  American  ran  'the  best 
peace  for  all  concerned  is  a  peace  without  victory,  a  peace 
without  conquest,  a  peace  without  indemnities,  a  peace 
without  annexations.' 

"On  March  2,  1918,  Mr.  Hearst  made  an  embittered 
attack  upon  Japan,  and  on  March  20  he  repeated  the 
attack.  He  spoke  of  the  'military  despotism  of  Japan/ 
of  the  'brutal  Oriental  selfishness  in  Japan's  present  atti- 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT    269 

tude,'  and  then  asked  the  question  as  to  who  was  going 
to  drive  her  from  Siberia,  answering  it : 

"  'Not  the  Allies,  for  they  are  too  much  occupied  with 
their  war.  Not  the  United  States,  because  we  are  putting 
all  our  eggs  in  the  Allies'  basket.  There  is  one  combi- 
nation possible  which  might  drive  Japan  out  of  Siberia, 
and  that  is  Russia  in  an  active  and  aggressive  alliance 
with  the  Teutonic  empire.' 

"These  sentences  amount  to  incitement  to  Russia  to 
become  the  military  ally  and  therefore  the  military  vas- 
sal of  Germany,  and  to  the  effort  to  persuade  our  people 
that  the  war  is  not  our  war  but  only  the  war  of  the 
Allies — that  it  is  'their  war/ 

"Such  language  as  this,  used  less  than  two  months 
before  Mr.  Burleson  issued  his  challenge  to  me,  is  a 
thousand  times  more  damaging  to  the  United  States  than 
anything  ever  said  by  Tom  Watson  or  any  other  of  the 
editors  of  small  papers.  For  Mr.  Burleson  to  allow  the 
paper  making  such  an  appeal  to  go  unchallenged,  and  yet 
at  the  same  time  to  permit  without  rebuke  the  New  York 
postoffice  to  attack  a  publication  like  The  Metropolitan,  is 
incompatible  with  the  supposition  thai  he  was  thinking 
only  of  the  welfare  of  the  country. 

"Mr.  Hearst's  paper  actually  states  that  it  believes  that 
our  government  made  a  great  mistake  when  it  did  not 
meet  both  English  aggressions  and  German  aggressions 
.  .  .  with  armed  resistance.  This  was  announced  during 
the  war;  yet  at  this  very  time  England  was  protecting 
us  from  Germany  and  without  that  protection  we  would 
be  given  no  time  in  which  slowly  to  make  ready  to  pro- 
tect ourselves.  If  we  had  begun  to  prepare  in  August, 
1914,  we  would  have  needed  no  protection  from  others. 
But  we  refused  to  prepare,  and  therefore  we  owe  our 
safety  now  only  to  the  fact  that  our  friends  are  able 
to  fight  for  us  against  our  enemies  while  we  are  slowly 
preparing  to  fight  for  ourselves.  And  Mr.  Hearst,  under 
these  conditions,  expresses  regret  that  we  did  not  go  to 
war  against  the  friend  who  fought  for  us !  Such  a  pro- 
posal is  a  proposal  in  the  interest  of  the  enemy,  who 
murdered  our  women  and  children. 


270  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

"On  September  22,  1917,  when  the  American  nation 
still  had  no  troops  in  the  trenches,  when  we  had  only 
lent  money  to  the  Allies,  Mr.  Hearst  touched  the  nadir 
of  the  policy  that  puts  the  dollar  above  the  man,  when 
he  stated  that  our  government  has  the  right  and  power 
to  dictate  the  terms  of  peace,  and  the  American  people 
expect  England  and  the  other  allied  governments  to  rec- 
ognise that  right  and  to  accept  the  terms  laid  down; 
the  statement  being  preceded  by  the  following :  'Having 
practically  exhausted  the  resources  of  Russia,  France 
and  Italy,  the  English  government  now  seeks  succor  in 
our  American  resources.  The  money  of  the  American 
people  has  been  loaned  to  the  Allies  in  great  sums.  Still 
greater  sums  are  in  readiness  to  lend  them.'  Statements 
like  this  cannot  but  aid  Germany. 

"In  all  of  Mr.  Hearst's  career  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  he  has  ever  proposed  anything  more  sordid  than 
this  suggestion  to  the  American  people,  to  a  free  people 
with  a  glorious  past;  a  people  proudly  able  and  willing 
to  fight  for  its  honour.  The  proposal  is  that  we  should 
treat  having  lent  money  to  the  Allies  as  offsetting  the 
fact  that  these  Allies  had  shed  the  blood  of  millions  of 
their  sons  in  protecting  not  only  themselves  but  this  coun- 
try from  the  brutal  dominion  of  Germany — a  dominion 
under  which,  if  Mr.  Hearst's  advice  had  been  followed, 
this  country  would  now  be  cowering. 

"The  debt  the  Allies  owe  to  us  for  our  money  is  in- 
finitesimal compared  to  the  debt  that  we  owe  them  for 
the  blood  shed  by  their  sons  on  battlefields  where  this 
nation  had  as  much  at  stake  as  the  nations  whose  armies 
fought  thereon. 

"On  March  8  last  Mr.  Hearst,  preaching  hatred  to 
Japan  and  using  language  tending  to  serve  Germany  by 
bringing  about  a  break  between  the  United  States  and 
Japan,  and  perhaps  Great  Britain,  says :  'If  Great  Britain 
cannot  restrain  her  special  ally  Japan  from  acts  of  ag- 
gression inimical  to  our  interests,  we  can  remove  our 
ships  and  troops  from  Europe  and  transfer  them  to 
Asia/  This  is  a  threat  of  war  with  Japan ;  a  threat  that 
we  will  enter  on  a  war  of  aggression  in  Asia.  There 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT 

could  be  no  possible  result  of  such  a  threat  except  service 
to  Germany.  It  was  a  threat  to  abandon  the  war  against 
Germany,  our  enemy,  and  embark  on  a  war  •  against 
Japan,  our  ally;  and  this  because  Japan,  in  the  interest 
of  the  Allies  and  of  civilisation,  had  contemplated  action 
in  East  Siberia  against  the  Bolsheviki,  who  have  shown 
themselves  to  be  the  allies  of  Germany,  the  enemies  of 
civilisation  and  the  enemies  of  the  United  States. 

"These  quotations  show  that  Mr.  Hearst  has  steadily 
endeavoured  to  belittle  the  vital  importance  to  our  coun- 
try of  this  war,  and  to  excite  the  hatred  of  our  people 
against  our  Allies  who  are  faithfully  fighting  beside  us; 
and  such  conduct  can  be  of  help  only  to  Germany,  to  the 
enemy  we  are  fighting.  Just  so  long  as  Mr.  Hearst's 
publications  are  permitted  in  the  mails,  Mr.  Burleson  is 
without  excuse  for  excluding  any  other  publication  from 
them.  The  Administration,  by  its  acquiescence,  permits 
the  continuance  of  Mr.  Hearst's  campaign,  which  neces- 
sarily tends  to  give  aid  and  comfort  to  Germany  and  to 
impair  the  morale  of  our  own  people. 

"The  quotations  above  given  deprive  Mr.  Burleson  and 
the  Administration  of  which  he  is  part  of  any  shred  of 
justification  for  their  action  and  inaction.  Mr.  Burleson 
is,  of  course,  only  secondarily  responsible  in  the  matter. 
Mr.  Hearst's  papers  are  so  important  and  Mr.  Hearst's 
position  among  the  Administration's  political  friends* 
supporters  and  advisers  is  so  prominent,  and  the  action 
in  connection  with  reinstating  him  in  his  cable  privileges 
was  so  purely  dependent  upon  the  President  himself, 
that  no  subordinate  of  the  President  can  accept  or  be 
credited  with  the  chief  responsibility  for  any  'action  or 
inaction  of  the  Administration  in  relation  to  Mr.  Hearst. 
The  Administration  is  responsible  for  the  toleration  of 
Mr.  Hearst's  anti-Ally,  anti-war,  and,  therefore,  anti- 
American  activities,  and  for  the  reward  nevertheless 
given  him,  and  the  service  rendered  on  the  other  side  by 
Mr.  Hearst  was  service  to  the  Administration  and  not 
to  the  country. 

"I  have  quoted  above  the  language  of  complimentary 
endorsement  in  which  two  of  President  Wilson's  Cabinet 


272  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Ministers  have  addressed  Mr.  Hearst's  editor,  Mr.  Bris- 
bane. The  President's  private  secretary  writes  Mr.  Bris- 
bane in  the  same  vein.  In  the  Chicago  Herald  and  Ex- 
aminer of  May  1 9th,  last  Sunday,  appears  the  following 
letter,  under  the  heading,  "A  New  Subscriber":  "The 
White  House,  Washington,  May  I4th,  1918.  My  dear 
Brisbane:  When  you  were  at  the  White  House  offices 
to-day,  I  forgot  to  ask  you  to  send  me  the  Chicago  Herald 
and  Examiner  regularly  to  my  office  here.  I  am  sure 
you  are  going  to  make  the  same  good  Democratic  fight 
in  Chicago  that  you  have  been  making  in  your  paper  in 
Washington,  and  I  want  to  see  just  how  you  do  it.  Sin- 
cerely yours,  [Signed]  J.  P.  Tumulty,  Secretary  to  the 
President.  Mr.  Arthur  Brisbane,  c/o  Chicago  Herald  and 
Exawtiner,  Chicago,  Illinois." 

"George  Harvey  has  pointed  out  in  the  North  Ameri- 
can Review's  War  Weekly  that  Mr.  Burleson  is  encour- 
aging enemy  language  publications,  by  having  a  special 
division  whose  function  is  to  assist  editors  of  foreign 
language  papers  'in  complying  with  the  law.'  The  Act 
of  Congress  provides  that  all  foreign  language  papers 
should  submit  to  censorship  or  go  out  of  business.  The 
Postoffice  Department's  duty  is  merely  to  suppress  those 
of  them  which  are  guilty  of  treasonable  practices.  Ap- 
parently, as  Mr.  Harvey  points  out,  Mr.  Burleson,  in- 
stead of  suppressing  papers  that  preach  sedition,  estab- 
lishes a  division  to  show  them  how  they  can  escape  sup- 
pression. 

"Mr.  Hearst's  papers  are  infinitely  the  most  important 
of  those  which  during  the  last  year  and  a  quarter  have 
tended  to  serve  Germany  and  have  harmed  the  United 
States  by  attacking  our  Allies,  or  opposing  our  effective 
participation  in  the  war.  There  are  various  other  papers 
published  in  English  or  German  which  have  been  less 
important  offenders. 

"On  April  2.  Professor  Guernsey  Jones,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Nebraska,  published  an  article  in  The  Nebraska 
State  Journal  on  'The  Enemy  Press.'  He  quoted  various 
articles  that  have  appeared  in  German-American  papers 
since  the  war,  and  some  of  them  as  late  as  January,  Feb- 


LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  ROOSEVELT  273 

ruary  and  Mlarch  last,  championing  the  German-Ameri- 
can Alliance,  attacking  England  and  Japan,  announcing 
that  'the  problem  of  the  German  press  is  to  save  Deutsch- 
tum  in  the  United  States,'  demanding  a  peace  which 
would  give  Germany  the  victory,  praising  Germany's  ac- 
tion toward  Russia,  and  in  other  ways,  as  Professor 
Jones  says,  showing  themselves  to  be  'insolent  organs  of 
Prussianism.' 

"These  papers  were  being  published,  and  Mr.  Hearst 
was  publishing  his  papers,  without  interference  by  the 
Postoffice  Department  and  the  government,  at  the  same 
time  that  proceedings  were  being  taken  against  The  Met- 
ropolitan Magazine,  one  of  the  staunchest  upholders  of 
the  war  and  staunchest  opponents  of  Prussianism  in  all 
the  United  States. 

"Congress  has  with  lavish  generosity  granted  all  the 
Administration  has  demanded  to  carry  on  the  war.  It 
has  also  granted  the  Administration  extraordinary  power, 
of  a  kind  never  hithertofore  granted  any  Administration, 
to  deal  with  the  internal  foes  of  the  nation;  and  this 
power  can  bet  and  has  been,  misused,  to  reward  the  Ad- 
ministration's personal  or  political  supporters  and  punish 
the  Administration's  personal  or  political  friends.  Con- 
gress— such  bodies  as  the  Senate  Committee  on  Military 
Affairs — has  exercised  its  power  of  investigation  and 
supervision  to  correct  executive  inefficiency,  executive  de- 
lay, and  executive  abuse  of  power,  and  has  done  this  in 
such  fashion  as  to  speed  up  and  render  immensely  more 
efficient  our  part  in  the  war.  Congress  should  vigilantly 
exercise  its  right  of  supervision  as  regards  the  use  of 
all  the  great  powers  it  has  granted  the  Administration 
over  the  properties  and  activities  of  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States. 

"In  his  last  statement  about  me  Mr.  Burleson,  copying 
the  example  of  Mr.  Wegg,  the  employe  of  Mr.  Boffin, 
dropped  into  verse.  As  he  seems  to  like  poetry  I  com- 
mend to  him  and  to  his  associates  the  following  lines: 

Whoso  speaks  in  your  presence  must  say  acceptable  things; 
Bowing  the  head  in  worship,  bending  the  knee  in  fear — 
Bringing  the  word  well  smoothen,  such  as  a  king  should  hear. 


274  THE  NATION  AT  WAR 

Given  to  strong  delusion,  wholly  believing  a  lie, 
Ye  saw  the  land  lay  fenceless,  and  ye  let  the  months  go  by, 
Waiting  some  easy  wonder;  hoping  some  saving  sign — 
Idle — openly  idle — in  the  lee  of  the  forespent  Line. 

"Very  truly  yours, 
(Signed)     "THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Ade,  Geo.,  iSS  „         „_ 
"Administration"  vs.  "Govern- 
ment," 229 

Admiral  Fletcher  cited,  33 
Admiral  Sims,  174 
Advisory  Commission,  47 
Alabama  cited,  85 
Albuquerque,  N.  M.,  114 
Alexander,   Governor,   131 
Alien  press,  162 
Alien  press,  19 
Aliens,  treatment  of,  i62ff 
Aliens,  treatment  of,  2igfi 
Alliance  of  democracies,  218 
America  and  England,  213 
America  and  France,  .218 
America  enters  the  war,  19 
American  inefficiency,  32 
American!  sation,  163 
Americanisation,  219 
American   Journal   of   Sociol- 
ogy cited,  iSpff 
American  provincialism,  213 
Americans  in  France,  I97ff 
America  to-morrow,  205 
Angell,  N.,  18 
"Angry-Saxon"  story,  63 
Argument  against  inconclusive 

peace,  239 
Arizona  cited,  116 
Arizona  cited,  163 
Arkansas  cited,  164 
Army,  inefficiency  in,  33 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  141 
Atlantic  Monthly  cited,  96 
Author's    intellectual    history, 

13 

Author's  politics,  29 
Author's  resignation,  225 


Baker,  N.  D.,  47 

Baker,  N.  D.,  52 

Baker,  N.  D.,  154 

Baker,  N.  D.,  194 

Baker,  N.  D.,  and  Hearst,  225 

Baker,  N.  D.,  and  Hearst,  238 

Baker,  N.  D.,  and  "Lusitania," 

264 
Baker   and    Scherer,    contrast, 

233 

Baker,  N.  D.,  protects  Hearst, 
231 

Baker,  N.  D.,  replies  to 
Scherer,  231 

Bamberger,  Governor,  130 

Baruch,  B.  M.,  47,  49 

Baton  Rouge,  La.,  83 

Berlin  Lokalanseiger  cited,  234 

Bernstorffs  quoted,  40,  41 

Bernhardi  cited,  17 

Bethmann-Hollweg,  117 

Bickett,  Governor,  74 

Bingham,  Utah,  130 

Blease,  C.  L.,  75 

Blease,  C.  L.,  183 

Blease,  C.  L.,  208 

Bloomfield,  M.,  180 

Bohn,  F.,  239 

Boise,  Idaho,  145 

Boise  Statesman  cited,  133 

Boll-weevil,  85 

Bolo  Pacha  of  American  jour- 
nalism, 230 

Booker     Washington's     story, 

154 

"Boosting,"  120 
Boston,  Mass.,  97 
"Boston  Tech"  celebration,  30 
Brigham  Young,  124 


277 


278 


INDEX 


Brisbane,  A.,  44 
Brisbane,  A.,  227 
Brisbane,  A.,  235 
Brisbane,  A.,  266 
British    Labour    Party's    Pro- 
gramme,  167 

Brooklyn  Eagle  cited,  236,  237 
Bryan,  E.  A.,  133 
Buehrmann,  Mayor,  80 
Burleson  and  Hearst,  236 
Burleson  and  Hearst,  238 
Burleson  and  Hearst,  250 
Burleson  and  Roosevelt,  250 
Business  Aid  committees,  70 
Butte,  Mont.,  145 

Cabinet  and  Hearst,  228 

Cabinet  and  Hearst,  267 

Cable  privileges,  Hearst's,  228 

California  cited,  104 

California  cited,  175 

California  cited,  183 

"Calif  orniacs,"  114,  120 

California- Japanese  question, 
186,  226 

Camp  Throop,  346* 

Camp  Throop,  42 

Canning  in  N.  C,  70 

Canning  in  Idaho,  132 

Carolinas,  58 

Carpenter,  L.  G.,  109 

Carrel,  A.,  168 

Catalina,  Cal.,  105 

Central  West,  150 

Century  Magazine  cited,  220 

Chamberlain,  J.,  218 

Chandler,  G.  B.,  104 

Chandler,  G.  B.,  108 

Chandler,  G.  B.,  112 

Charleston,  S.  C,  77 

Chenard,  M.  J.,  249 

Cheradame,  A.,  96 

Chicago,  111.,  153 

Chicago,  111.,  159 

Chicago,  111.,  226 

Chicago  Herald  and  Exam- 
iner cited,  272 

Christ  cited,  207 

Cities,  charm  of,  76 

Clarkson,  G.  B.,  47 


Coffin,  H.  E.,  47 
Colby  College,  189 
Collier's  Weekly  cited,  90 
Collier's  Weekly  cited,  257 
Cologne     V  olkszeitung     cited, 

227 

Colorado  cited,   iO9ff 
Colorado  Springs,  Col.,  no 
Commencement  address,  30 
Commercial    Economy    Board, 

49 
Committees  of  Public  Safety, 

60 

Commonwealth  Club,  175 
Community  Councils,  51 
Community  Councils,  06 
Congress  criticised,  208 
Connecticut  cited,  8gfi 
Connecticut  cited,  136 
Connecticut  cited,  150 
Conservation  of  resources,  32 
Constitution  cited,  229 
Constitution  cited,  254 
Constructive  criticism,  251 
Constructive  criticism,  206 
Corcoran,  J.  A.,  259 
Corn,  152 
"Cotton   as  a  World   Power," 

61 
"Cotton  as  a  World   Power," 

69 
Council    of    National   Defense 

described,  47ff 
Creel,  G.,  207 
Creel,  G.,  219 
Creel,   G.,  2536* 
Creelman,  J.,  226 
Cromer,  G.  B.,  72 
Cromwell  cited,  155 

Daniels,  J.,  47 

Daniels,  J.,  and  Hearst,  267 

Davenport  hotel,  122 

Day,  H.  L.,  135 

Declaration  of  Lutherans,  22ff 

Delaware  cited,   60 

Delaware  cited,   160 

Democracies,  alliance  of,  218 

Democracies,  inefficient,  34 

Denman,  W.,  181 


INDEX 


279 


Denver,  Col.,  109 

Des  Moines,  Iowa,  161 

Dietz,  L.  C.,  262 

Disillusionment  of  author,  15 

Disque,  Capt,  144. 

District  of  Columbia  cited,  163 

Dodson,  W.  R.,  81 

Dorsey,  Governor,  85 

"Down  South,"  s8ff 

Doyle,  Governor,  120 

Draft  Act,  42 

Economic  argument  against  in- 
conclusive peace,  239 

Edgar,  G.,  171 

Editors,  George  Ade  on,  157 

Efficiency  and  Idealism,  3Off 

Efficiency  in  army,  33 

Ellerbe,  C.,  81 

Emergency  Fleet  Corporation, 
108 

Emergency  Fleet  Corporation, 
180 

Emergency  Fleet  Corporation, 
231 

Emperor  of  Germany  quoted, 
210 

Employment  service,  87 

England  and  America,  2l3ff 

English  and  aliens,  163 

English  and  aliens,  219 

Englishwomen  in  War  indus- 
try, 90 

Examiner,  Los  Angeles,  cited, 
118 

Examiner,  Los  Angeles,  cited, 
226 

Examiner,  Los  Angeles,  cited, 
233 

Examiner,  Los  Angeles,  cited, 
236 

Examiner,  Los  Angeles,  ex- 
posed, 243 

Exchanges,  labour,  87 

"Extra-legal  treatment,"  121 

"Farm    Plattsburgs,"    163 
Ferncroft,  Mass.,  104 
Flag  of  America  in  France,  201 
Flag  of  France  story,  201 


Fletcher,  Admiral,  cited,  33 
Florida  cited,  164 
Food  administration,  50 
Food  administration,  59 
Ford,  G.  S.,  97 
Ford,  G.  S.,  104 
Ford,  G.  S.,  108 
Fore  River,  Mass.,  88 
Foreign  language  press,  19 
Foreign  language  press,  162 
"Four  Princes,"  14 
Fox  City,  Cal.,  104 
France  and  America,  197 
France  and  America,  218 
France,  mortality  in,  201 
Freedom  of  seas,  39 
Freedom  of  speech,  206 
Freedom  of  speech,  225ff 
Freedom  of  speech,  251 
French  devotion,  201 
French  women,  201 
Fuel  administration,  50 

Garfield,  J.  R.,  19 

Gastinel,  O.,  197 

George  Ade,  issff 

George  III,   13 

Georgia  cited,  85 

General  Council  of  Lutherans, 

22ff 

General  Medical  Board,  50 
General  Munitions  Board,  48 
German-American  press,  19 
German-American  press,  162 
Germania  Herold  cited,  162 
German  ideals,  2ioff 
German  language  press,  19 
German  language  press,  162 
German  Reformation,  14 
Germany,     influence     on     the 

writer,  13 
Gifford,  W.  S.,  47 
Gifford,  W.  S.,  51 
Gifford,  W.  S.,  103 
Gifford,  W.  S.,  225ff 
Godfrey,  H.,  47 
Goethals,  G.  W.,  181 
Gompers,  S.,  47 
Gompers,  S.,  49 
Goodrich,  Governor,  155 


280 


INDEX 


"Government    vs.    Administra- 
tion," 229 

Governor  Alexander,  131 
Governor  Bamberger,  130 
Governor  Bickett,  74 
Governor  Dorsey,  85 
Governor  Doyle,  120 
Governor  Gunter,  lopff 
Governor  Goodrich,  155 
Governor  Holcomb,  94 
Governor  Manning,  75 
Governor  Pleasant,  82 
Governors  of  Carolinas,  73 
Governor  Stewart,  145 
Gronna,  Senator,  208 
Gulls  and  Utah,  127 
Gunter,  Governor,  lopff 

Hale,  G.  E.,  51 

Hale,  G.  E.,  167 

Hamburger  Nachrichten  cited, 

233 

Hammond,  Mrs.,  83 
Hardwick,  Senator,  85 
Hardwick,  Senator,  208 
Harms,  Mayor,  107 
Harris,  G.  W.,  260 
Hartford,  Conn.,  8o.ff 
Hartford,  Conn.,  203 
Hartford  Times  cited,  103 
Harvey,  G.,  272 
Haynes,  J.,  105 
Hays,  W.  H.,  155,  156 
Hay  wood,  "Big  Bill,"  in 
Health  statistics,  32 
Healy,  Dean,  36 
Hearst  and  Baker,  231 
Hearst  and  Japan,  118 
Hearst  and  Japan,  247 
Hearst  and  Japan,  268ff 
Hearst  and  the  President,  228 
Hearst  papers,  123 
Hearst  papers,  207 
Hearst  papers,  225ff 
Hearst     papers     and      Sierra 

Madre  Club,  243 
Hearst    papers    and    Sedition 

Act,  29 

Hearst's  motives,  230 
Helena,  Mont.,  139 


Helena,  Mont.,  145 
Henderson,  A.,  222 
Hendrick,  B.  J.,  90 
Herald  and  Examiner  cited, 

272 

Hessians,  13 
Holcomb,  Governor,  94 
Hollweg-Bethmann-,  117 
Hoover,  H.,  50 
Hoover,  H.,  59 
Hotels  criticised,   123 
Housing,  163 
Houston,  D.  R,  47 
Hughes,  J.  L.,  36 
Hughes,  C.  E.,  150 
Hurley,  E.  N.,  181 

Idaho  cited,  I3iff 

Idealism  of  Americans,  3off 

Illinois  cited,  153 

Illinois  cited,    159 

Illinois  cited,  164 

Illinois  cited,  226 

I.  W.  W.,  142 

I.  W.  W.,  145,  147 

Inconclusive  peace,  226 

Inconclusive  peace,  239 

Independence  in  politics,  29 

Independent  cited,  257 

Indiana  cited,  issff 

"Industrial  Plattsburgs,"  88 

Inefficiency,  American,  32ff 

"Intelligensia,"  207 

International     News     Service, 

T  235 

Iowa  cited,  161 

Jackson,  Editor,  cited,  228 
Jackson,  Miss.,  64 
Jacobs,   H.   E.,  222 
Japan,  California  and,  226 
"Japanese  Crisis,"  226 
Japan,  Hearst  and,  118 
Japan,  Hearst  and,  226 
Japan,  Hearst  and,  2476* 
Japan,  Hearst  and,  2<58ff 
Joan  of  Arc  story,  196 
Joffre,  Marshal,  46 
Johnson,  Senator,  186 
Jones,  G.,  272 


INDEX 


281 


Juman,  Mrs.,  85 

Kaiser  Wilhelm  quoted,  210 

Kansas  cited,  160 

Kansas  City  Star  cited,  250 

Kellogg,  F.  W.,  228 

Kent,  Sir  S.,  89 

Kentucky  cited,  159 

Kitchin,  C,  183 

Knights  of  Columbus,  137 

Kultur  vs.  culture,  15 

Labour  exchanges,  87 
Labour  in  the  War,  49 
Labour  in  the  War,  87ff 
Labour  in  the  War,  no 
Labour  in  the  War,  221 
Labour  Party  in  England,  167 
La  Follette,  Senator,  208 
Lane,  F.  K.,  45,  47 
Lane,  F.  K.,  160 
Lawson,  J.,  HI 
Lever,  A.  F.,  183 
Liaison  officers,  59 
Liaison  officers,  166 
Lincoln  on  loyalty,  29 
Lincoln  on  Trent  Affair,  40 
Lincoln  quoted,  205 
Lippmann,  W.,  208 
Literary  Digest  cited,  19,  20 
Lloyd  George,  D.,  181 
Logan,  Utah,  127 
Louisiana  cited,  8iff 
Louisiana  cited,  149 
Louisville,  Ky.,  159 
Lorraine  story,  196 
Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  104 
Los  Angeles  Examiner   cited, 

118 
Los  Angeles  Examiner   cited, 

226 
Los  Angeles  Examiner   cited, 

233 

Los  Angeles  Examiner  cited, 
236 

Los  Angeles  Examiner  ex- 
posed, 243 

Los  Angeles  Times  cited,  117 

Los  Angeles  Times  cited,  226 

Loyalty  League,  144 

Loyalty,  Lincoln  on,  29 


Loyalty  of  Lutherans,  20 
Loyalty  of  Lutherans,  216,  223 
Lumbermen,  144 
Lusitania  incident,  27 
Lusitania  incident,  41 
Lusitania  incident,  264 
Lutheranism  in  Germany,  14 
Lutheran  loyalty,  20 
Lutherans,  loyalty  of,  223 


Magruder,  A.  C,  no 
Maine  cited,  97 
Major  Moton  cited,  63 
Manning,  Governor,  75 
Mansur,  E.  M.,  258 
Markham,  E.,  36 
Martin,  F.,  47 
Maryland  cited,  164 
Massachusetts  cited,  88ff 
Massachusetts  cited,  gSff 
Massachusetts  cited,  150 
Massachusetts      Institute      of 

Technology,  30 
Mather,  Sir  Wm.,  28 
"Mayflower,"  38 
Mayor  Buehrmann,  80 
Mayor  Harms,  107 
Mayor  of  Summit,  N.  J.,  263 
Mayor  of  Mt.  Vernon,  263 
McAdoo,  W.  G.,  115 
McClellan  Statue,  126 
McKibben,  F.  P.,  180 
McKinnon,  Jane,  70 
Melting-pot,  220 
Merriam,  J.  C.,  175 
Metropolitan    Magazine    cited, 

253 

Michigan  cited,  160 
Ministerium   of    Pennsylvania, 

24ff 

Minnesota  cited,  136 
Minnesota  cited,  162 
Missouri  cited,  135 
Missouri  cited,  152 
Mississippi  cited,  65 
Mississippi  cited,  83 
Montana  cited,  139 
Monterey  training  camp,  28 
Montgomery,   Ala.,  85 


282 


INDEX 


Mormon  organisation,  112 
Mormon  patriotism,  128 
Mormon  woman's  letter,  131 
Mortality  in  France,  201 
Moton,  Major,  63 
Motoring  in  New  England,  104 
Mount  Vernon,  45 
Mount  Vernon,  N.  Y.,  263 
Muhlenberg,  J.  P.  G.,  13 
Munitions  Board,  48 


Napoleon  and  America,  39 
National  Academy  of  Sciences, 

167 

National  Research  Council,  51 
National  Research  Council,  166 
Nebraska  cited,  107 
Nebraska  State  Journal  cited, 

272 

Negroes  in  the  War,  636* 
Negro  letter,  64 
Neutrality,  President  on,  27 
Nevada  cited,  120 
Nevada  sheriff's  letter,  121 
New  England,  87 
New  England,  150 
"New  Freedom"  cited,  205 
New  Hampshire  cited,  98,  102 
New  Jersey  cited,  164 
Newlin,  G.,  107 
New  Mexico  cited,  114 
New  Orleans,  La.,  76 
Newport  News,  Va.,  88 
New  Republic  cited,  76 
New  Republic  cited,  208 
New  Republic  cited,  257 
New  York  cited,  164 
New  York  American  cited,  227 
New  York  American  cited,  233 
New     York    American    cited, 

202ff 

New    York    Evening    Journal 

cited,  235 

New  York  Herald  cited,  262 
New  York  News  cited,  260 
New  York  Times  cited,  19 
New  York  Times  cited,  22Sff 
New  York  Times  cited,  239 
New  York  Times  cited,  263 


New  York  Times  cited,  265 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  182 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  228 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  231 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  233 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  257 
New  York  Tribune  cited,  265 
New  York  World  cited,  263 
Nicholson,  M.,  155 
North  American  Review's  War 

Weekly  cited,  181 
North  American  Review's  War 

Weekly  cited,  272 
North  Carolina  cited,  62 
North  Carolina  cited,  70 
North  Dakota  cited,  164 

O'Connor,  T.  P.,  194 
Oath,  58 
Oath,  229 
Ohio  cited,  164 
Oklahoma  cited,  160 
Omar  Khayyam,  35 
Oregon  cited,  143 
Oregon  cited,  149 
Oregon  Journal  cited,  228 
"Out  West,"  107 
Overman,  Senator,  62 

Pacifism,  i8ff 
Palouse,  Idaho,  136 
Pan-Germany,  96 
Pan-Germany,  227 
Pan-Germany,  239 
Parker,  J.  M.,  8iff 
Partisanship,  29 
Pasadena,  Cal.,  19,  43 
Pasadena,  Cal.,  77 
Pasadena,  Cal.,  117 
Pasteur  and  Lister,  169 
Pastorius  quoted,  215 
Peace,    danger    of    premature, 

227 
Peace,    danger   of    premature, 

239 

Pennsylvania  cited,  160 
Pennsylvania  cited,  163 
Pennsylvania  Dutch,  216 
Pennsylvania  Ministerium,  24ff 
Perigord,  P.  H.,  104 


INDEX 


283 


Perigord,  P.  H.,  137 
Perigord,  P.  H.,  145 
Perigord,  P.  H.,  189 
Pershing  story,  200 
Personalities,  1836? 
Phelps,  H.,  83 
Pilgrims'  sailing,  38 
"Plattsburgs,  farm,"  163 
"Plattsburgs,  industrial,"  88 
Pleasant,  Governor,  82 
Plymouth,  37 
Poindexter,  Senator,  letter  to, 

250 

Politics,  author's,  29 
Portland,  Ore.,  105 
Portland,  Ore.,  141 
Portland,  Ore.,  228 
Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  263 
President    Wilson    and    Holl- 

weg,  117 
President  Wilson  and  Hearst, 

228 

President  Wilson  cited,  66 
President  Wilson  cited,  71 
President  Wilson  cited,  205 
President    Wilson    on    State 

Councils,  56 
Presidio,  34ff 
Presidio,  42 
Provincialism,  213 
Prussian  ideals,  2ioff 
Public,  The,  cited,  261 
Publicity  in  Conn.,  95 
Public  opinion  2056* 
Public  opinion,  251 
Public  Service  Reserve,  92 

Race   problem   and   the   War, 

6sff 
Race   problem   and  the   War, 

83 
Railway  administration,  59 

Reardon,  E.  L,  66 
Reed,  Senator,  208 
Religion  and  the  War,  155 
Religion  and  the  War,  221 
Reno,  Nev.,  120 
Reno,  Nev.,  145 
Research  Council,  51 
Research  Council,  166 


Resignation,  225 
Rhode  Island  cited,  98 
Roosevelt,  F.  D.,  181 
Roosevelt,  T.,  criticised,  228 
Roosevelt,  T.,  letter  of,  250 
Roosevelt's  reply  to  Burleson, 

250 

Root,  E.,  206 
Rosenwald,  J.,  47 
"Ruggles  of  Red  Gap,"  122 
Russia,  Brisbane  on,  235,  267 
Ryan,  J.  D.,  148 

Sacramento,  Cal.,  120 
Sacramento,  Cal.,  145 
Salem,  Mass.,  103 
Salt  Lake  City,  122 
San  Francisco,  Cal.,  77 
San  Francisco  Call,  cited,  228 
Saw-mills  for  England,  98 
Scherer,  P.  A.,  117 
Scherer,  P.  A.,  180 
Scherer,  J.  A.  B.,  cited,  226 
Scherer,  J.  A.  B.,  cited,  61 
Scherer,  J.  A.  B.,  cited,  69 
Schmauk,  T.  E.,  24 
Schwab,  C.  M.,  181 
Science  and  the  War,  1676* 
Science  and  the  War,  221 
Scott,  F.  A.,  48 

Scribner's  Magazine  cited,  l6fl 
Seattle,  Wash.,  1426* 
Sedition  Act,  29 
Sedition  Act,  233 
Senator  Gronna,  208 
Senator  Hardwick,  85 
Senator  Hardwick,  208 
Senator  Johnson,  186 
Senator  La  Follette,  208 
Senator  Overman,  62 
Senator  Poindexter,  250 
Senator  Reed,  208 
Senator  Vardaman,  84 
Senator  Vardaman,  208 
Senator  Williams,  84 
Shakespeare  quoted,  213 
Shaw,  A.  H.,  49 
Shaw,  A.  W.,  49 
Shipbuilding,  182 
Shipping  Board,  179 


284 


INDEX 


Shipping  Board,  231 
Sierra  Madre  Club,  243 
Sims,  Admiral,  174 
Singmaster,  E.,  215 
Sinn  Fein,  145 
Slacker  slogans,  161 
Slogans  for  slackers,  161 
Small,  A.  W.,  iSpff 
Smith,  R.,  160 
Smyth,  N.  A.,  93 
Socialism,  165 
South  Carolina  cited,  66 
South  Carolina  cited,  183 
South  Dakota  cited,  164 
Southern  California,  104 
Southern  California,  119 
Sphagnum  moss,  143 
Spokane,  Wash.,  i22ff 
Spokane,  Wash.,  142 
Springfield,  Mo.,  152 
Spring-Rice,  C,  100 
Spy-imaginary,  62 
Spy-imaginary,  107 
Spy's  imaginary  letter,  149 
State  Councils  and  the  Presi- 
dent, 56 
State    Councils,   beginning   of, 

Si 

State   Councils   described,   52ff 
State  Councils  described,  59 
State  Socialism,  165 
Statistics  of  health,  etc.,  32 
Stewart,  Governor,  145 
Stratton,  S.  W.,  171 
Street,  ].,  73 
Street,  J.,  77 
Street,  J.,  124 
Summit,  N.  J.,  263 
"Sumter  County  Plan,"  66ff 
Suzzallo,  H.,  i42ff 
Swords  of  Washington,  46 
System  magazine,  49 

Talleyrand  cited,  205 
Taylor,  H.  W.  J.,  145 
Tennessee  cited,  160 
Texas  cited,  116 
Texas  cited,  164 
Thornton,  W.  C,  in 
Throop  College,  19 


Throop  College,  28ff 

Throop    College,    address    at, 

3off 

Throop  College  in  the  War,  43 
Tillman,  B.  R.,  184 
Times,  Los  Angeles,  117 
Treitschke  cited|  17 
Trent  Affair,  40 
Trowbridge,  J.  T.,  103 
Tulsa,  Okla.,  160 
Tumulty,  J.  P.,  and  Brisbane, 

235 
Tumulty,  J.  P.,  and  Brisbane, 

272 

Universal  City,  Cal.,  104 
University  of  California,  178 
University  of  Utah,  126 
University  of  Washington,  142 
"Up  North,"  87 
Utah  cited,  i24ff 

Vardaman,  Senator,  84 
Vardaman,  Senator,  208 
Verdun,  Perigord  at,  193 
Vermont  cited,  88 
Vermont  cited,  98 
Vimy  Ridge,  139 
Vimy  Ridge,  Perigord  at,  194 
Virginia  cited,  164 
Vossische  Zeitung  cited,  266 

War  Employment  Service,  87 
War  Industries  Board,  49 
War  Labor  Policy  Board,  91 
War  of  1812,  39 
Washington  cited,  136,  141 
Washington  cited,  149 
Washington  City,  first  impres- 
sions, 44 

Washington  Post  cited,  66 
Washington's  swords,  46 
Washington  Times  cited,  44 
Washington  Times  cited,  227 
Washington  Times  cited,  235 
Washington  Times  cited,  267 
Washington  Star  cited,  118 
Water  in  hotels,  123 
Watson,  Tom,  85 


INDEX 


285 


Watson,  Tom,  2S6ff 
Watters,  H.  J.,  161 
Webb,  F.  H.,  243 
Weiser,  Conrad,  215 
Welch,  W.  H.,  168 
Westberry,  R.  W,  66 
West  Virginia  cited,  159 
Wheat  in  Utah,  128 
Whitman,  W.,  222 
Wickharn^  C.  H.,  105 
Wilkes,  Capt,  40 
Willard,  D.,  47 
Williams,  Senator,  84 
Wilson,  H.  D.,  81 
Wilson,  H.  L.,  122 
Wilson,  President,  cited,  66 
Wilson,  President,  cited,  71 
Wilson,  President,  cited,  205 
Wilson,    President,    on    State 
Councils,  56 


Wilson,  President,  on  Neutral- 
ity, 27 

Wilson,  President,  and  Hearst, 
228 

Wilson,  President,  and  Holl- 
weg,  117 

Wilson,  W.  B.,  47 

Winterbotham,  J.  H.,  Jr.,  160 

Wisconsin  cited,  136 

Wisconsin  cited,  162 

Women  in  War  industries,  90 

Young,  B.,  1246* 
Young,  Lafe,  161 
Young,  L.  E.,  125,  128 
Youth's  Companion  cited,  102 
Yser  story,  197 

Zigzag  journeys,  152 
Zimmermann  letter,  116 


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